Local Domain Name and external web site have same name

I have a little big problem, my company have a domain name mycompany.com and an external website also called mycompany.com. I have added an A record pointing to the external IP address of mycompany.com, I have also an A record WWW pointing to the external IP address of mycompany.com

The internal users can type www.mycompany.com and it goes through after a long wait, the wait between 20 to 30 seconds every time the access something on the website (but at least the can access it right?).

Any suggestions as of how we can eliminate this big delay??

Running AD on Windows Server 2012.

Thank you very much
paco1969Network/Systems AdministratorAsked:
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mfgsilvaCommented:
if you control you own dns, create an a record pointing to the internal IP. That should speed things up.
i think that your problem could be a NAT internal to external IP causing the issue on your firewall
mfgsilvaCommented:
one additional thing. If you would like to test things add the internal ip and address to your Hosts file to test or try connecting to your site using ip address only
paco1969Network/Systems AdministratorAuthor Commented:
Thank you mfgsilva, I did try the website using the IP address and it opens right away, however once in there, if I want to brow the site, it goes slow again, as it converts the IP into the website name. I do control my DNS servers. I dont have a NAT rule on this for my firewall.

I really appreciate your assistance
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mfgsilvaCommented:
is the IP address the same internal and external ? if not you probably have a static route somewhere pointing your external traffic out
or your local dns settings are pointing to an external dns instead of internal
paco1969Network/Systems AdministratorAuthor Commented:
they are different IP addresses. My website have a public IP and my internal is a private IP. I have added DNS records on my internal DNS server. A record pointing to the external IP address and A  record www pointing to the external IP as well
mfgsilvaCommented:
if you control you internal DNS change a record  external IP to your Internal and  test.
paco1969Network/Systems AdministratorAuthor Commented:
I forgot to add, I did migrate my DNS, DHCP and AD server from windows 2008 32bit to windows 2012 server, I dont if this is a coincidence, but  it  started right after that move
paco1969Network/Systems AdministratorAuthor Commented:
sorry, which record on DNS? my external IP to my internal IP??
mfgsilvaCommented:
yes if your external is : 1.1.1.1
and your internal is :2.2.2.2

Change you a record www from 1.1.1.1 to 2.2.2.2

and test
paco1969Network/Systems AdministratorAuthor Commented:
Nope that didn't work, I get the webpage cannot be reached
mfgsilvaCommented:
do a trace route and check on you system gets to the site
paco1969Network/Systems AdministratorAuthor Commented:
it gets there fine with 2 time outs in between but at the end it shows me mydomainname.biz instead of the mydomainname.com but I see that the .biz name is a pointer to the .com domain
Jeremy WeisingerSenior Network Consultant / EngineerCommented:
If you have an internal AD domain, you need to remove the "Same as parent" record you added pointing to the external server. That will mess things up. So internally you will need to use www.mydomainname.com and not mydomainname.com as you need that for your internal AD.

Are there multiple records for www.mydomainname.com or mydomainname.com?
If you switch your computer's dns server to use 8.8.8.8, does the website resolve normally and is quick?
Is it slow on just loading the first time but can you then browse around quickly?
David Johnson, CD, MVPRetiredCommented:
concur remove the A record mydomain.com that points to the external address and keep just the www.mydomain.com that  points to the external address.
or remove both from your local dns entirely and manage the www at your registrar
paco1969Network/Systems AdministratorAuthor Commented:
@Jeremy, first of all, thank you very much for your reply, I have removed both and or one of the entries on my DNS and we cannot access the website at all, we do type www.websitename.com and we got page cannot be display/cant be found.

@David, also thank you very much, you both have good points. I have an entry on my registrar, that reads: *.mywebsitename.com to external IP address. but I don't have www.mywebsitename.com to external IP. I have only the wild card.
paco1969Network/Systems AdministratorAuthor Commented:
@jeremy, I have added 8.8.8.8 as my dns and its much faster
Jeremy WeisingerSenior Network Consultant / EngineerCommented:
OK, it does point to an internal DNS issue. This is a split-brain DNS setup. So for you to resolve internal resources you need to point to your internal DNS server. To be able to access the external www.mydomainname.com, you need to add that record to your internal DNS zone.

Here's a few questions that might help narrow down things:
When using the internal DNS server, is it slow on just loading the first time but can you then browse around quickly or is it constantly slow?
On the internal DNS server, do you have multiple www records?
paco1969Network/Systems AdministratorAuthor Commented:
when using internal DNS is constantly slow.
I only have one www on my records
Jeremy WeisingerSenior Network Consultant / EngineerCommented:
Does the website use any other subdomains besides www? (e.g. images.mydomainname.com, media.mydom.... , scripts.mydom...., etc.)
Does the website hard code anything to mydomainname.com?
paco1969Network/Systems AdministratorAuthor Commented:
yes, The website have also www.mydomainname.biz which points to www.mydomaniname.com
So, if I enter www.mydomainname.biz on my browser, translates to www.mydomainname.com
paco1969Network/Systems AdministratorAuthor Commented:
If I launch the webpage on the DNS server itself, it runs fast, just an observation
David Johnson, CD, MVPRetiredCommented:
then I'd suggest you should look at the client dns records they should only point to the AD DNS servers and not any of the public dns servers
paco1969Network/Systems AdministratorAuthor Commented:
Thank you David, all my clients are DHCP therefore they all get AD DNS. I added https://mywebsitename.com pointing to the external IP of the website and 8.8.8.8 as DNS and that seems to work fine, but that is a temporary fix.
Jeremy WeisingerSenior Network Consultant / EngineerCommented:
If you're using 8.8.8.8 for the client machines, you might have issues with local resources.

You mentioned that the server performed quickly. Do you know if the server is pointed to itself for DNS or is it using an external DNS server?

Maybe it's a performance issue on the local DNS server? You can run some benchmarks against it to see how it performs: https://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm
paco1969Network/Systems AdministratorAuthor Commented:
I end it up calling my Website support and ask them to move all the pointers from mywebsitename.com  to www.mywebsitename.com
That worked great, my clients are happy now with the speed they can access the page now.

Thank you Jeremy and David for all your suggestions.

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