Hi, I'm experiencing problems setting up my new Win03 server. My current config. 1.) ISP DSL link to a Netopia dsl router with DNS and DHCP enabled 2.) Dell unmanaged 25 port switch connected to router via one of the switch ports. 3.) Win03 server connected to the switch via a standard nic to one of the switch ports 4.) 15 Win XP clients connected to the switch via standard nic's to the switch ports. DHCP is managed by the router at present. I've setup the Win 03 server as a domain controller. I've also setup Active Directory, DNS and DHCP on the server. PROBLEMS 1.) When I switch off DHCP at the router, and release/renew IP's on any of my clients, they are not picking up the Win03 DHCP server. I've ensured that the server itself has a manually assigned static IP so I've ruled that out as an issue. I've also ensured that the only DNS server listed on the server is the DNS server running on the server (i.e. The TCP/IP properties on the server have 127.0.0.1 as the primary DNS server) This SHOULD mean that the domain name "mydomain.local" is resolved correctly by the client when I try to connect it to the domain. - but the client is not recognising it. (FYI - a simple ping of mydomain.local on the server itself resolves to the currect static ip of the server) Is there something fundamentally wrong with my network setup as outlined above? Should I have the server connected directly to the router? I've got another nic on the server which is currently not connected to anything - should I plug this directly into the router and leave the other nic connected to the switch? I didn't think this would help as the router itself is already connected to the switch and the xp clients don't have a problem picking up the router dhcp service when it is enabled on that topology. I figured that the dhcp service on the Win03 server would also be picked up in a similar manner but at the moment that is not proving to be the case. Any help with the above is greatly appreciated. I hope to avoid having the server directly connected to the router as I don't want the server to become a point of failure for general internet connectivity. (i.e. I could re-enable DHCP at the router in a few mins if the server was offline)

1.) ISP DSL link to a Netopia dsl router with DNS and DHCP enabled You can't have DHCP enabled on both the router and server. Pick one and disable it on the other. Typically for an AD integrated domain you will want to run DHCP on your DC, not the router. You will want to forward the DNS on the server to your provider's DNS server. DHCP scope should have the DC's IP as the DNS server for clients so they can be resolved upon login (ie: login to the domain). Requests inside the local DNS zone go to the DC for resolution. The DC forwards all requests outside the local zone to your providers DNS server for resolution.

you put the isps dns server in the forwarders tab in dns which is not to be confused with forward lookup zone fyi. Imagine the power of knowing how to internet search http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html