Whoops! LAN Domain Name is Same as WAN Domain Name, DNS Help!!!

[Karl Burrows]

For whatever reason (mostly my stupidity!), when we setup and installed a
new 2000 server, the local domain name is 'domain'.com and we have a Web
domain that is also 'domain'.com. I didn't even think about DNS resolution
issues. We are running this server using AD and it is a PDC. It is the
only server in a small network. Most of the clients are 2000 and XP
machines.

Because the names are the same, all computers could not go to the Website or
open email. I added a new group to the forwarding with the www address and
the WAN IP. That fixed it for a few computers, but the XP's get an :80
error and others just give me a DNS error. Why would some work and others
not?

Basically, how can I get the DNS to resolve the local .com from the www.com?
I tried adding the name servers from the host, but that didn't work. I had
to turn off DNS so we could get our email and get to our home Website.

Is there any reason I need to run DNS? I have the clients set to autodetect
the DNS which has been setup on the router for our ISP's DNS for WAN. I am
running WINS for the 2000 and below systems and have modified the host and
lmhost files for XP, so that should resolve any local addressing.

Thanks!!!

 

[Karl Burrows]

So, what you are saying is, if I have the clients setup to automatically
obtain an IP address and the DNS, I should remove the ISP's DNS addresses
from the router and only have the server's IP address there so that all
requests are forwarded to the server?

I have the forwarders setup to the ISP's IP in the server's DNS settings.
Should I also include the server's IP in the forwarders as the first
address?

Being new to all this, how do I add the external Webhosts IP address to our
Website in the DNS configuration? Do I add a new host to the forwarder and
if so, what do I use for the host name? Is there something else I should do
to fix this?

Thanks!

Active Directory absolutely will not run without DNS.

What you have done is actually a common configuration. You don't want
external people seeing your internal DNS setup. The problem comes, as
you've found out, when your internal people can't access things like your
web site. The solution is to simply add any external records to your
internal DNS. That advice is based on the likelihood that there are only a
few records for you to manage manually.

All your workstations should point to your internal DNS server only. Your
servers should point to your internal DNS (not your ISP's) and you should
set up forwarders in your DNS to point to your ISP's DNS.

If you don't know all the records held in your external DNS, you could ask
your ISP.

Hope this helps

Oli