Setting up a Home Domain Based Network

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

I have tried this before a few times and it just makes me want to cry !! If someone can I help I'll buy you a million virtual beers

Equipment

1 x Athlon 1800XP machine set up with Windows Server 2003 on
** I have installed 2 network cards on this server

1 x Laptop P4
1 x Desktop P4
1 x 4 Port Router

Currently laptop, server and desktop are connected to the router - they are not networked - this is just so they can all access the internet through the router

The router connects to the internet via Virgin Media's seperate cable modem

What I want to do is setup my other 2 computers so they log onto to the domain which will be the server and can then all talk to each other. They can also access the net via the server

The Server will connect to the internet via the cable modem which will be attached to network card number 2

I have made the Server a Domain Controller, DNS Server and DHCP server but now I am stuffed and I do not know what to do.

If I try to get one of the XP (Pro) machines to find the domain I get an error about DNS.

Can anyone help ? I cannot even get a connection on Network Card 2 to access the internet via the cable modem. There is nothing wrong the equipment I just do not know how to configure it all and I cannot find anything on the net meaningful. Pulling my hair out !!

Am shortly studing for the MCSA so if anyone can help this would be wicked.

thanks in advance
B.

 

Without getting too much into this, one thing that occured to me is that you may be trying to run both an authorised and un-authorised DHCP server at the same time which could definitely cause problems.

So make sure that the DHCP server on the router is turned off.

Also, make sure the second NIC on the server is using a static IP address in the same range that the router is actuall using.

eg. If the router is on 192.168.0.1, then stick the server's 2nd NIC on 192.168.0.10. Stick with a standard class C subnet to make things simple (255.255.255.0). Then the gateway IP on the 2nd NIC should be set to 192.168.0.1

DNS for the server on the 2nd NIC should be set to 192.168.0.10. Then ensure that the DNS forwarders are setup to either point at 192.168.0.1 (or) the actual DNS addresses that your ISP uses. The reason I say use either one of the above because some routers automatically detect the ISP's DNS IP's and forward for you, and some don't.

If you can access the internet on the server at this point, then you need to configure the DHCP server on the server to give out the correct information to your workstations (the two P4's).

So make sure the scope is configured to give clients the correct gateway and DNS IP's. The gateway will be 192.168.0.1 in this context, and the DNS will be the IP of the server (192.168.0.10).

Give all tha a crack and let us know what happens.

 

have a read of this thread, might help. there are a few questions and answers here that might help, even though it does seem long. Here

 

Thinking on after what I posted, you should try and get the workstation clients logging on to the domain without errors before you try and get internet working on them.

Forget putting the gateway in on the server, and make sure the server's DNS ip is it's own IP address.

 

excellent I have read through that and will try it in a minute

my router currently acts as a dhcp server for my 2 workstations. Its a netgear 4 port router

on my second nic if i have it cabled straight into the virgin media cable modem do i choose ip addy 192.168.0.10 ? and if so do i then use the gateway addy of the virgin media cable modem and their dns servers ?

 

I use ADSL and it's a while since I dabbled in cable at all. WagnerK may be able to answer this one for you as I know he has a Virgin CM.

I don't know what kind of addressing the CM is likely to be on if you connect directly into it. It will obviously have a WAN IP of some sort that is facing the internet, but I don't know if they use NAT internally or not.

The best way would be to let the router handle that for you and only connect the server to that. For a start it gives you a hardware firewall between the net and your server.

I'd get that DHCP turned off on the router as well. You are going to have problems if your workstations are listening to two DHCP servers (ie your router and 2k3 server). Also the DHCP on the router will be very primative and you won't learn anything at all by having it on. Set it up and configure it on the server.

p.s the 192.168.0.10 address I mentioned was just a suggestion of what IP to have your server on. Primarily as your router is likely to be using the same range and subnet.

p.p.s don't get hung up trying to get the internet working on the server and workstations. You should be concentrating on getting the workstations logging on successfully without errors before worrying about net access for them. I would suggest the following :-

Set the server up as a DC. Enable and configure DHCP on it. In terms of roles for the server you shouldn't need anything else at this point. If your workstations have previously been joined to your home domain, un-join them (I'd wipe them and put a clean OS on just to be sure) then when you are happy the server is up and running, join them to the domain and try and logon with some test accounts.

 

[columbo]Oh and one more thing[/columbo]

You don't need multihomed NIC's on the server to make this work (ie more than one).

Server + workstations can all be plugged into the switch/router and will be fully networked and all will be able to access the internet once it's been configured properly. It's a fairly simple and staight forward setup to be honest.

 

ok getting there I think, your right router is best way to go I reckon.

So stopped DHCP on the router and then tried accessing the net again to see if my machine was picking up the net

it is ! and its being assigned its IP addy etc from my server ! Result

So I try to add this computer to the domain - I have added it in Active Directory to Computers and created an account in active directory

However when I try to add it I get error occured attempting to join the domain contoso - the network path was not found

I can ping the server so what gives ?

thank you very much for this help its very much apprecaited

oo i nthe domain box I am just tryping CONTOSO - even though in AD i set the domain up as contoso.local - this does not matter does it ?

 

the DHCP scope on the server is between 192.168.0.10 and 192.168.0.254

yet according the TCP/IP properties of this connection I am using the ip addy is 192.168.0.2 but the default gateway is the servers ip address which is also out of the servers scope

why is that ?

 

am not quite understanding this dude

made sure the DNS points to the LAN IP of your domain controller

 

Ok, delete any computer accounts for any workstations you have added (in AD Users & Computers).

On one of your workstations (that isn't joined to the domain), start the procedure to join it. Note, I haven't asked you to create an account or anything like that in ADUC.

Just join the workstation to the domain and use a domain admin account when it asks for the user credentials. For the domain name, type in contoso.local (it will probably accepts just Contoso and it will add the .local itself internally). It's good practice to use the FQDN for the domain though.

Once you have put the credentials in, after a few seconds it should welcome you to the domain, reboot, then try and logon. The computer account will have been created automatically for you in the Computers OU.

Also (as Sparky mentioned, and it's VERY important so check this), make sure the DNS that you are handing out from the DHCP server is the IP address of your DC (ie your 2k3 server). And also make sure that the DNS address on the NIC in your server is set to localhost, or the IP of the server.

You are highly likely to get logon problems from workstations if you haven't done the above. If you then want internet to work on the workstations (assuming they are logging on ok), make sure you specified the correct Default Gateway in your DHCP scope (the IP of your router) and also setup your DNS forwarders on the DNS server (this will either be the IP of the router again or the DNS IP's from your ISP). Try the router IP as a single forwarder to start with, that will probably work.

 

Ok, in realtion to the IP issues you don't seem to understand.

I'll have to assume certain things here.

The TCP/IP settings on the NIC on your server ...

It sounds like you have set the IP for your server as 192.168.0.2. I'll also assume that your router is on 192.168.0.1.

If this is the case, then your TCP/IP settings on the NIC on your server should be as follows :-

IP Address: 192.168.0.2
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 192.168.0.1

Preferred DNS server: 192.168.0.2


That is what your server's TCP/IP settings should be, providing your server is on 0.2 and the router is on 0.1.

For your DHCP scope you should be handing out 192.168.0.1 as the Gateway, and 192.168.0.2 as the primary DNS, there won't be a secondary in this case.

So your clients would recieve an ip from 192.168.0.10 upwards, a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, a gateway of 192.168.0.1 and DNS of 192.168.0.2

Providing the DHCP is setup like that, you should have no problems.

 

servers IP addy is 192.168.0.5

i can also ping server name server01

just going to try what you said

incidentally i have the laptop and desktpo on and the server reckons it has leased an address out to 192.168.0.10 yet according to my lappy and desktop they are 0.2 and 0.3 respectively

the DHCP server options has the 006 DNS Servers value as 192.168.0.1 which is the routers ip addy is that what you mean ?

 

ahh I have statically assigned my servers IP addy as 192.168.0.5 is that wrong ? I have also assigned its gateway as 192.168.0.1 which is the routers IP adddy - as the DNS Server is has assigned itseld 127.0.0.1

the forwarders point to the Virgin media DNS serves though