Hi. Bit of a silly question this, but I am struggling to get my thick head around it. I am in the process of configuring a new Active Directory Domain for our network, I have registered our email domain to add an Exchange server later on. My query is this: Which is the best way of naming my new AD Domain? Do I name it as a child domain of our mail domain i.e. host.abc.123.com, Or is there another way? Bearing in mind the only server that will be seen from the internet is our exchange server once it is set up, will I face problems pointing to the correct mail domain from exchange? One more thing! Are there any special DNS Considerations to take in? I am only planning to use DNS as part of our Local domain, not hosting any nameservers on the internet etc. Thanks

Exchange simply needs an MX record for the internet domain you want to receive mail. For example, if your company has registered homestarrunner.com, you only need to make sure your DNS server has an MX record for homestarrunner.com even if the internal dns name is trogdor.local. (Sorry, big fan of that site. :-) ) "President Bush is doing everything he can to help lower gas prices...including making oil companies so rich that maybe they'll get sick of money and pass the savings on to you."

>Which is the best way of naming my new AD Domain? Do I name it as a child domain of our mail domain i.e. host.abc.123.com, Or is there another way? Yes, as a child is fine, like local.abc.com or Mycity.abc.com, etc. You can also do it like abc.com.local but that seems counter-intuitive to me and I never use that method. >Considerations to take in? I am only planning to use DNS as part of our Local domain, not hosting any nameservers on the internet etc. I think you are a bit confused or I misunderstood your question. In any case it is extremely important that you understand the DNS service that runs on your servers, how to set it up, and the consequences of changing settings like forwarding, recursion, etc. There are many, many DNS guides on the Internet. If you have problems get back to us with details of what you have done so far and what the problems are. One nice thing about DNS is it virtually impossible to hose it, as if you really, really, screw it up, you can just delete all the zones or even remove then reinstall the DNS service and start over. Peter

"One nice thing about DNS is it virtually impossible to hose it, as if you really, really, screw it up, you can just delete all the zones or even remove then reinstall the DNS service and start over." Dunno about that with Active Directory! DNS is a major achilles heal of AD. If your DNS is screwed up badly, so is your AD, and it's not just a matter of deleting the zones and starting over. "President Bush is doing everything he can to lower gas prices, including...making the oil companies so rich that maybe they'll get sick of money."

Perhaps my statement was too sweeping. Probably there are in fact situations where it could be hosed to the point that serious problems with AD resulted, but I have removed DNS service from a domain and then re-installed without any problems - done it a number of times. Peter

In how complex an environment have you done this? And how long did it take? For a large domain with many DC's, and especially with DNS AD integrated zones, that would be a horrendous nightmare! Not trying to start an argument or anything, but I've had to fix DNS for large organizations who almost tried to do everything they could to blow DNS and AD up, like unplug DC's from the network without dcpromoing them down, deleting random resource records, changing A records of DC's, etc. It took DAYS to figure out all they messed up fix it. "By the way, for a fun second-term drinking game, chug a beer every time you hear the phrase, ‘contentious, but futile protest vote by Democrats.’ By the time Jeb Bush is elected, you’ll be so w

larger than the poster's domain. Peter