I am setting up a Domain at home and would like some advice, seeing you know quite a bit around computing.net forums I have the following set up: DSL --> ROUTER ROUTER/SWITCH --> 3CLIENTS/SERVER My router is a DHCP SERVER My SERVER is running Windows 2003 STANDARD on the following: PIII 500Mhz/512K/100 256MB PC100 SDRAM 40GB 5400RPM HDD (ATA-100) connecrs through PROMISE RAID CARD (sx6000) CD-ROM AGP Video card The server installed fine, I installed the driver for the NIV (Broadcom Nextrene 70xxx) and installed all of the windows updates, now i am supposed to set the server a STATIC IP and itself as DNS SERVER and then forward to the ROUTER, right? If this is so, then that means that my server will point to itself for DNS but all clients will point directly to the router? I can't help but feel that I am missing something here please help if possible Thanks a lot, Darin L Darin Luckie

You can use static IPs for all the machines. All machines including the server get connected to the router either directly, though a switch or through a wall jack to a patch panel and then to the switch. Each network card, should be configured with the IP of the server as the DNS server and the IP of the router as the default gateway. That's all you need. To make things easy, name the domain something.local if you're not using it as a web server to be accessed by the public. If you are using it as a web server, then the setup would be different.

thanks a lot, i will try that and post back with my outcome As always Darin L Darin Luckie

"If this is so, then that means that my server will point to itself for DNS but all clients will point directly to the router?" Yes server points to itself as dns. No the work stations don't point to the router for dns but the server. Server forwards to isp dns via the forwarders tab in dns server. You can but should not have the router do dhcp. That should be the ms server so dns is dynamically updated by ms dhcp. Server should have a static ip but workstations don't have to and dhcp for workstations is correct if you are setting up a training lab. If you have the router do dhcp it needs to provide the ms server as dns server or wksts won't have local name resolution. Knowing the correct answer and giving a correct answer, are two different things

thanks guys I have set up the following on my network: AD + DNS on SERVER DHCP on SERVER SERVER IP 192.168.1.2,255.255.255.0 ROUTER 192.168.1.1,255.255.255.0 CLIENTS GET IP FROM SERVER AND DNS IS FORWARDED TO ROUTER (THEN TO ISP) I seem to have everything set up so i will add my computer names and users and post back P.S: How can i make it so the users have there "Documents & Settings" folder on the server to save space on their PC's? I have moved the "My Documents" over without any problems but would like to set up a quota so when they connect to their machines they will have a network attached drive linked to a folder on the server with X amount of space they can use Any ideas? Thanks a lot As always Darin L Darin Luckie

To set disk quotas: right click on the partition (on the server) which has the client data, and choose properties > quota tab. The rest should be self explanatory. LOGIN SCRIPTS TO MAP NETWORK DRIVES Perhaps the most coherent and accurate way of mapping a drive by default is with a good old logon script. This involves two steps (if you are using a domain) 1. create a batch file 2. assign that batch file to each user in the domain controller's administrative tools. so, 1. in notepad, type net use U: \\servername\sharename (obviously replace these with your actual names) save as "logon.bat" save in C:\WINDOWS\sysvol\sysvol\<domain_DNS_name>\scripts 2. (on the domain controller) Start> Programs > Administrative Tools> Active Directory Users and Computers. For each user, Profile tab login script: login.bat NOTE: if you don't want to save the batch file to the folder specified above, that's fine, but you have to type in the full UNC path. "If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure." - BILL CLINTON

small typo: logon script: logon.bat "If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure." - BILL CLINTON