DNS issue adding intranet webserver

[atdawgie]

Hi, I've got a LAN with NAT 192.168.0.0 running Windows 2000 Active Directory DNS. I have ad.mycompany.com as my windows DNS but want to add an intranet webserver called intranet.mycompany.com How would I do so? I don't want the webserver to be called intranet.intranet.mycompany.com or intranet.ad.mycompany.com.

Thanks,
Aaron

 

[FaiTHLeSS]

Add an A record at the top level for your domain so just add an A record that = intranet.mycompany.com.

Also if each computers has a domain suffix applied to it, then you should get away with just being able to type

http://intranet

in your browser as each client will check the suffix of the domain when trying to resolve addresses.

Also make sure you have set the host header value on your webserver for the correct address.

 

[atdawgie]

Thanks but it looks like Microsoft DNS doesn't have an option to just add an A record from the top level? I can only create a new zone when right-click on Server1 or forward lookup zones.

The only area where I have the option to add a host is when I right-click on ad.mycompany.com but then it wants to add it under ad.mycompany.com, not mycompany.com Options are: update server file, reload, new host, new alias, new mail exchanger, new domain, new delegation, other new records.
Here is my setup:
DNS
->Server1
->forward lookup zones
->ad.mycompany.com
->reverse lookup zones

 

[atdawgie]

After adding the zone mycompany.com and creating a host record within it, updating the ptr record, and then setting the host header value on my web server to intranet.mycompany.com I get the error message "bad request (invalid hostname)

 

[FaiTHLeSS]

So your DNS has been setup with the zone ad.mycompany.com ? Instead of setting it up mycompany.com then creating a subdomain within that?

Ok not sure what problems this might create having it setup this way, but is there any sort of delegation setup or do you have any other DNS servers else where in your company that host mycompany.com zone?

Your best bet would be to add the intranet A record to ad.mycompany.com but dont create a PTR record for it there is no need when just creating a pointer for a webpage.

Then add that intranet.ad.mycompany.com to the host header value. Try and load the page now to see if it works. You should be able just to type

http://intranet

if DNS suffix have been added to the network properties for the computers on your network, this means you dont have to type the full FQDN to access the webpage.

Also check that you can ping intranet and intranet.ad.mycompany.com from the comand line to check they are returning the correct IP of your webserver.

This to me would be the best way of doing instead of having to create a new zone for mycompany.com

Post back on how you get on or if you need anymore help, I wont reply for several hours from now though as its midnight here time for zZzZzzz.

 

[atdawgie]

Hi, Thanks for the help. Yes I've setup the domain with ad.mycompany.com because I wanted to keep the windows active directory in a separate space from the rest of the domain. mycompany.com was never created in this case. I've added the DNS host field as you said and made the changes to the host header value and it works! I don't understand why I only need to create a host record and don't need the pointer record though.

Also I would like to put the address at

http://intranet.mycompany.com

by creating another zone even though the other way of just typing

http://intranet

is pretty cool.

Oddly enough as well, and this has been a problem for a long time. When I type an http address that doesn't exist on the web, I get redirected to our companies

http://url

If I type something like

http://yahoo.com

it works fine. But

http://blahblahwhatever

always redirects us to the companies website. I know it's a DNS issue but am not sure what is causing it. Basically instead of erroring out with a page not found, it tries to resolve the page to something else.

Thanks,
Aaron

 

[FaiTHLeSS]

PTR record is for reverse lookup's which is not needed in this case not when you are creating an A record for a website. Most people put the PTR record as the machinename.ad.mycompany.com there should already be an A record for machinename.ad.mycompany.com there to. Not having a PTR record wont affect people being able to get to your site.

--Also I would like to put the address at

http://intranet.mycompany.com

by creating another zone even though the other way of just typing

http://intranet

is pretty cool.

I'm not sure what would happen if you crate the 2 zones on the same server you could run into lookup problems when trying to resolve names. You could try but im not sure of the outcome. I would have just set it up a zone as mycompany.com at the start then created a subdomain within that zone for ad.mycompmany.com

The

http://intranet

way you should be able todo this now, you have the A record already setup in place. If you try and type this now can you get to the site? If not goto Start > Run > CMD > ipconfig /all, see if there are any DNS suffix Search List there. If not then you should be able to add the via a GPO or going to the properties of the network card and putting it in.

As for your last problem I'm not really sure whats causing that. You would need to troubleshoot it yourself and try and figure out why unless someelse of these forums can give you an answer. It could be possible its something todo with root hints but im really not sure.

 

[atdawgie]

When I setup the domain I read some documentation that indicated it was good practice to keep the active directory separate from the domain, thus (active directory) ad.mycompany.com. What's confusing is in many examples they have multiple zones in the DNS. Why wouldn't these cause lookup problems as my zones ad.mycompany.com and mycompany.com would?

I do get lookup problems when I create the mycompany.com zone as you said. No users can browse my public website until I remove the zone mycompany.com. It seems that the local zone on my DNS mycompany.com is somehow conflicting with the lookup for the public mycompany.com website??

What I don't understand is, if I started from scratch and created a zone, mycompany.com with a subdomain ad.mycompany.com, wouldn't they still get lookup problems when trying to browse for the public website?

When I just add the host record to ad.mycompany.com and add the header to the web server typing

http://intranet

works fine. ipconfig /all reveals ad.mycompany.com which is correct since all my machines are all in the active directory domain.

For my last problem when I look at my root hints, only my A and I root hints resolve to valid servers, the rest have errors. Could this be the problem?

 

[FaiTHLeSS]

If you want to use mycompany.com zone you will also have to make sure you have the matching record that are on your external DNS zone on your internal DNS zone to, so you would also have to create

http://www A

record etc to point to the external IP address of the public webserver as all internal clients will look at internal DNS 1st, if they cant find the answer there for a locally hosted zone then they wont look externally either. Thats why you would have to create the same records internally that you have externally hosted to.

Your current setup is fine and it would be better to stick to how you have it so it wont create any other problems.

You can host lots of zones within the DNS i currently have 3 zones hosted on mine plus 1 reverse lookup. But im not sure creating ad.mycompany.com and mycompany.com zones on the same server might causes problems, it might not but then again it might, im not sure of the outcome if you did this as i've nevered tried todo that.

The problem of people getting redirected to your company's site has got me im not sure why it would be doing that. The only thing that i can think of at the moment is maybe you have some default search set maybe in a policy somewhere that causings it to redirect to your site if they cant find the page they are looking for. Question though do you run any sort of proxy server which could be causing this?

I hope my answers are to confusing on this :-s