Windows 2003 - DNS Setup

[Will]

Ok, I have a Windows 2003 box with DNS server sucessfully installed. I have added a suffix onto the computer's network ID to get rid of the "The DNS server machine currently has no DNS domain name" warning message.

How the smeg do I now get DNS lookups for domains to work? I have no control panel that allows me to sucessfully add glue to my nameservers, by the way.

server50785.uk2net.com sucessfully resolves to my IP address. Why does my IP address ignore any DNS requests?

Anyone got any pointers to get me started? Been so long since I did this and last time was more luck than judgement!

 

[Matthew]

Hey, I will start from the top and work down all the settings you can use <img
src="http://www.hostingrefuge.com/images/smilies/smile.gif" border="0" alt="" title="Smilie" smilieid="41"
class="inlineimg" />
Right click on your server name in DNS and click properties. Set the IP's it will listen on. You can use all if you wish
or just specify 2.
Forwarders... I just leave default on a single server setup.
Advanced... Leave the same
Root Hints... Leave as default
I do enable monitoring. You should see pass/pass when you hit test.
Thats all. You can switch logging on if you wish.
Next you right click on forward lookup zone and click New Zone, Next, Primary Zone, Next, domain.com, next, next, next
finish.
Now the zone is created just go to c:\windows\system32\dns\domain.com.dns and open it in Notepad. You will see the
following or similar. The settings in here are automatically taken from your computer name and DNS Suffix (right click
my computer, properties, computer name).
;
; Database file domain.com.dns for domain.com zone.
; Zone version: 1
;
@ IN SOA server1.domain.com. hostmaster.domain.com. (
1 ; serial number
900 ; refresh
600 ; retry
86400 ; expire
3600 ) ; default TTL
;
; Zone NS records
;
@ NS ns1.domain.com.
@ NS ns2.domain.com.
;
; Zone records
;
You will then need to paste in the following records... all spaces, tabs and line breaks need to stay the same if I
remember correctly.
@ A 123.123.123.106
@ MX 21 mail.domain.com.
* A 123.123.123.106
ftp A 123.123.123.110
mail A 123.123.123.109
ns1 A 123.123.123.107
ns2 A 123.123.123.108
server1 A 123.123.123.106
www A 123.123.123.106
Just replace all those IP's with your IPs for the services. as well as your domain for the MX record.Save the text file
and go back to DNS, right click on the domain and click reload. All your records should appear.
The other way is to manually add all the records. I just find this way quicker with using notepad.
Now this is done you need to create ns1.yourdomain.com at your domain registrar as well as ns2.yourdomain.com as name
server host records. Once done you add the name server names and shortly after all should start working.
Let me know if you get stuck or at what point and I can remote desktop in and take a look, or offer advice here.

 

[Matthew]

Sorry if you got a bunch of notifications about this reply. The formatting would just not work. It's kind of ok now, so I best leave the reply above as it is.

 

[Will]

What do you mean about the registrar? I can't seem to be able to create any records with my registrar (123-reg)

What about if I have a domain elsewhere with A records set up?

I have ns88.docupro.co.uk at stormhosts set up to point to my new server - it's ugly but I thought it would work. Seems to be a problem with my DNS server itself not accepting queries. Does it need to accept recursive queries?

 

[Matthew]

ns88.docupro.co.uk will need creating as a name server host record at your registrar. A records can help, but wont get it to work. I havent used 123 reg to set name servers before. When you add name servers on the modify section, does it ask you to specify IP addresses? I wonder if at this part it then creates them as name server host records. DNS on your side doesnt need recursive queries on. Am I understanding correctly that you want to use nsX.docupro.co.uk and nsX2.docupro.co.uk to host DNS your self rather then at stormhosts?

 

[Will]

Totally and utterly lost now. (My understanding of DNS is like my understanding of the mating calls of the giant centipede!)

It's not the docupro.co.uk domain I wanted to run on the server. I just assumed that having an A record that pointed to my server's IP address would be OK to use as a nameserver record. Obviously this is not the case.

To play with DNS on my registrar's pages I need to have the domain in question set to their nameservers, or so they say. So I am totally lost as to how I will do this.

Let's take a new domain, and start fresh.

Let's say www.newdomain.co.uk has just been registered at 123-reg and the nameservers currently point to 123-reg. Would I then set my nameservers to ns1.newdomain.co.uk and ns2.newdomain.co.uk? If I do this, how the hell will the rest of the internet know where these are? Totally confused.

 

[Matthew]

It sounds like you need to contact 123 reg. Creating name server host records is normally a fairly clear option in the CP although some registrars dont allow this to happen with out contacting them. I guess 123 reg need contacting. Just email and ask them to create ns88.docupro.co.uk and give them the IP that they need to specify. They should be able to sort that quite quick.

 

[Will]

Ah, wait a minute. In 123-reg they stuck this under the "Change Nameservers" option. Don't know why!

If you enter something in the nameserver options that is in your domain (EG: ns1.newdomain.co.uk) it detects this and asks you to fill in the IP addresses. I can only assume this then creates the glue records I need.

 

[Matthew]

How is it looking now? Did that sort it?

 

[Will]

No, something seems to be stuck in between.

However, there's something with IPSec on there that the server managers put there. Does Windows need IPSec running to function correctly if I have a seperate firewall?

 

[Matthew]

IPSec doesnt need to be running and is usually off by default. If you have another firewall then you are ok. If you PM me something to test with I will do some lookups etc...

 

[Will]

Cheers Matt!

Want to post here what you did? Might help other people who are using UK2 servers and scratching their heads as to why their DNS ain't working!

 

[Matthew]

The DNS zone had the name servers missing from it as well as the host name. I added those in to the zone for you and reloaded the zone. Also the 2 IP's specified for name servers were not added to the Nic. Once they were added all was good to go.