DNS, AD, DHCP, IIS, In too deep, Need Help PLEASE!

[danomaniac]

The problem with a little knowledge is it can be dangerous. I have been fighting with setting up IIS on my Win2K server trying to get an intranet running and I'm stuck. Can someone please help me? I've posted a few times earlier but probably didn't know enough to ask the right questions. After getting my hands dirty for a few days now, maybe now I can.

Here's my setup:

Win2K Server AD DHCP - Only DC
I have an NT Box with a static IP and two NIC's running a software router as my default gateway.
I have two other NT boxes with static IP's for dedicated Data Collection and a file server - all the rest of the boxes (mixed NT and 2K) use DHCP.

I started to set up an intranet on the primary server because it's running win2K server and pws on a workstation is limited to 10 connections. (true?)

Read up on IIS 5.0 and looked and I had it installed, but no PWS. So I read some more and it looked like other people had it so why can't I? I went to the control panel to add windows components and under the details section of IIS, no pws. In the meantime, I downloaded NT Option pack 4 on my desktop pc (NT4) and installed it. PWS.
Intranet in 5 minutes. Works fine. Limited to 10 connections, though. So back to the server.

Started messing around with IIS and got it working, IISHelp worked, everything worked except I had to type

http://10.1.0.100/

instead of

http://servername/

to view the site. On my test site on my NT Desktop I can type

http://pcname/

and get to the site, and it's on DHCP.

Next stop, DNS.

I looked at my forward lookup zones, and there are a few entries: my gateway, the DC, and the two other static IP's on the network. Nothing else.



I could go to a DOS prompt and ping the server using IP, or the server name, either way would resolve to the FQDN and ping fine.

I added a line in my hosts file adding the server to it with a bogus name, then I could ping the bogus name, but I still had to enter an IP to see the site.

some of the clients on DHCP can be pinged by computer name and some can't - don't know why

On a whim, I searched my server and found pws.exe and ran it. It ran, but couldn't start the service. Error 3. I read about that in a post and someone suggested uninstalling and reinstalling IIS. So I did. I had no trouble reinstalling it, but now the snap in won't initialize. I get an error - something to do with a problem with the server. I'll have to wait until I'm back at work in the morning to post the exact error.

I don't know if the error is because I've jacked up my DNS or what.

I've spent two solid days reading about DNS and I can't for the life of me figure out why this won't work. I don't know if I should keep fighting with IIS, or DNS? Or maybe both were okay and I've caused a problem elsewhere. I would greatly appreciate someone helping me to solve this.


Thanks very much...

 

[DoItAll]

You need to set up internal DNS.
- Internal DNS IP Config should pint to ist own IP Address
- In DNS Manager go to properties -->forwarders-->put ip address of your ISP DNS servers
Have all you clients resolving to your internal DNS machine
Create a Host file on your internal DNS for your Intranet

Cheers

 

[danomaniac]

Let me show you what I've got...

When I run ipconfig /all from command prompt I get:

Windows 2000 IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . .: ztm-pdc
Primary DNS Suffix. . . . . . .: corp.ztm.com
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . .: Broadcast
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . .: No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . .: No
DNS Suffix Search List. . . . .: corp.ztm.com

Ethernet adapter Active NIC:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix.: corp.ztm.com
Descripiton . . . . . . . . . .: 3Com EtherLink Server 10/100 PCI <3C980C-TXM>
Physical Address. . . . . . . .:00-01-03-E0-C8-B4
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . .:No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . .:10.1.0.100
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . .:255.255.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . .:10.1.0.254
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . .:10.1.0.100
NetBios over Tcpip. . . . . . .isabled

C:\>

This machine does not connect directly to the internet. I have a proxy server at 10.1.0.254

Also...I can not select a forwarder...it is greyed out.

 

[danomaniac]

Well, Problem solved.

I feel stupid. It was the browser. I put a check mark next to 'Bypass proxy for local addresses' and VOILA!

Anyway, I'll never get bit by that one again. Thanks again.

 

[bluewhaleCA]

Add on for internal DNS setup:
According to Microsoft you only need to list the DNS server as it's own DNS server under the NIC's properties in order to set it up. It will then go out ( on it's own: IP info is built into W2K Server ) to DNS Root Servers and obtain the info it needs to act as the LAN's DNS server.
It works. I am uncertain what the forward and backward lookup entries are for ( I've read it a dozen times but as it's not used I can't recall ) but am sure they are not required for that machine to act as a DNS server ( unless the use of DHCP requires it? )

Paul

 

[brontosaurus]

If you're referring to Forward and Reverse Zones, the only DNS server that would not need these is a Caching-only server. Forward Zones are what contains the data for your domain/lan. Reverse zones, while not always necessary, can be required by certain applications and will only make life easier if you have them configured.

 

[bluewhaleCA]

Could be: we are not offering any services to the public which would require DNS entries. Thanks for the info.

Paul