Server DNS & Active directory: basic help needed. 1

[amitech]

Hi,

A couple of years ago we setup a small network with a stand-alone Win 2000 server, Services in use are: PDS, DHCP & Active directory, mostly file sharing is the key areas of use here.
All of the user work stations are Windows 200 (All professional I think). And file sharing has been working well.

However I failed to get to grips with configuring the Active directory, I must have bypassed a couple important steps in getting the Active Directory to work correctly: hence there are NO devices listed in the A-Directory as viewed on ether the server or if a workstation attempts to look at the device network directory in Network neighbourhood.

Recently the users have been set-up to use various online (Internet based services) where thy have to log into various internet web based servers. Unfortunately the users URL request frequently come back with an "Cannot find server or DNS Error" message, but I have proven that taking the "www" out of many of the URL browser address entry’s seems to provide a crude fix to the problem. This is obviously to do with my failure to configure the DNS server side of the 2K server correctly.
The internet is accessed by a Telco configured DSL Cisco router/Gateway with a static internal IP address, this independently works fine if a PC uses the ISP's DNS servers, but of course the Win2k Workstations need to look at the Servers DNS service to log on to the domain correctly.

Would someone please offer me a brief list of things to check & set-up on the server please?

Many thanks,

Jim. UK.

 

[JeffG2583]

Are your clients set to use ONLY the DNS server you've set up for DNS requests? Do you have two different DNS addresses for your clients? How are they listed?

 

[amitech]

Thanks Jeff,

I am not physically onsite at present, From memory I can confirm that the work stations network properties have their first DNS Server address set to this (the) only Win2k PDC sever IP address onsite.
And I think that some of the work stations have a second DNS server address entered which is the IP address of the ISP domain server.
And I am sure that the Server is incorrectly configured and IS Not correctly handling DNS requests, due to my ignorance!

Jim.

 

[buddafish]

Enable forwarders on your Windows 2000 DNS server. List the IP addresses of your ISP's DNS servers.

This will allow the DNS server to look to these "outside" DNS servers for addresses that it cannot resolve.

scottie

 

[amitech]

Ok,

Here I am looking at the sever now and reading my way through the Microsoft KB Article 300202 @

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;300202&sd=tech

The DNS server is already and installed and also has a Root DNS Zone installed. I am sure that Dcpromo has been run on this server previously.
Question: Should I delete the Root DNS Zone? as the KB document provides instructions for doing this but does not explicitly advise me to remove it.

Thanks guys,

Jim.