I so confused 2

[Ladynet]

Good Morning

I think I am over analyzing the job ahead of me and I think I have done a great job at confusing the heck out of myself. So I need your help in un-jumbling this mess in my head so I can straighten myself out and make this project fly.

What I need to do (seems simple enough (hence the problem: because nothing is simple)) is take the web sites and exchange functions from the third party provider and move them in house.

Now the confusion: I know the .com part has to stay outside of the network so there will always be a top level DNS server. The company ABC.com will be hosted here so I have set up a DNS server here. The MX record for exchange will stay with the top level DNS, or do I need to bring that in house to?

I also realize I have to set up SMTP and POP3 for incoming and outgoing mail, or can I just use the default virtual connectors?

Anyway I guess I know what needs to be done and I think I am just looking for confirmation of my plan since I am the only one here and have no one else to confide in.

Thank you

Linda

 

[franke]

Linda,
I'm going to be watching this thread with a great deal of interest as I'm trying to do the same thing myself.

I am running two machines, one for email and one for web services. I have a static DSL connection with 5 public addresses. I have one of the PA's translated to the private address of the mail server and one translated to the web server. Both machines are running the FreeBSD OS (I tried to use WinNT 4, but the information is now scarce or non-existant for IIS 4). The web server is running Apache and the mail server is running Postfix as the MTA. I can access the web server internally and via the internet, so now I just need to set up the web site. The email is another story. I can use it internally, but I'm at a loss as to what step to take next. I 'think' we're looking at a 'forwarding' DNS :/

Good luck in your venture.

franke

 

[teqmod]

You have a pretty broad question here and no info on your actual site configuration now but let me take a generic stab at it. Unless you have a major corporation or are an ISP you do not need to have DNS in house, you can just have the SOA changed to whomever your ISP is and then have them point there DNS servers to your machines public IP addresses. You can still set-up your network to have its own DNS server that it uses but this will not be public. You would install DNS on an internal server then configure a pointer record to go out to your ISP for any records your in house DNS server could not resolve. Next, make sure all internal machines are only using your DNS server and this will help to quickly resolve the names of your companies web and mail servrs. This will work for most small-medium companies without any problems.

 

[franke]

Thanks Tegmod, for myself I believe that solves the problem in our situation.

franke

 

[Ladynet]

Thanks teqmod

I actually contacted my ISP provider and they gave me all the steps I need to accomplish this move such as

1. Down load all web sites and test
2. Regester A and MX records to my Exchange server an Web sites
3. Update name servers
4. Allow for progergation time

thus it is what you stated above

Or according to them I can have thier DNS mummble jumble (didn't understand)

But I decide to go with what you and my ISp suggest

Linda

Thanks teqmod