Server 2003 & the rest of my network

[axemagic]

First off, my apologies if this is referenced somewhere else, as I read through numerous posts here and thought I had the answers to my problem. If anyone thinks I missed a post that will settle this for me, please direct me and maybe we can call this closed. :)

My hopes are for YeOldeStonecat to square me away as he's quite the genius with this stuff! A lot of the settings I've changed were based on things he's said to others in the passed.

So here's my dilemma....

I have Time Warner's Road Runner high speed internet coming into my Vonage/Linksys router.
The router's internal IP is 192.168.15.1 and will be the "Default Gateway".
I've turned off DHCP as my server will be the DHCP server.

My server is running Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition.
I've made it a domain controller = shawnp.local
It's also a DNS server and DHCP server.

I've set my server's NIC to 192.168.15.11 (no special reason for the .11 - I just told my daughter to give me a number ;) )
SNM is 255.255.255.0
Def Gate: 192.168.15.1 (Vonage/Linksys router)
DNS is Server's IP: 192.168.15.11

One thing I noticed is that whenever I've tried installing DNS, it fails on the diagnostics and I figure I can just fix it manually. I created the primary zones to be my domain and have the NS/SOA/Host records of my server's IP and or domain. My object's "Forwarders" are pointed to my ISP's DNS servers for outside requests/queries.

DHCP server settings are pretty standard. Hands out IP's from .20-.30, while .1-.19 will be for anything static such as my printers, other LAN devices, etc.
I configured the scope options for 003-Router = 192.168.15.1; 006-DNS = 192.168.15.11. It's active and authorized.

I have a Belkin 54G wireless router that I configured as an access point. Its IP is 192.168.15.4 and gets its connection from the linksys router and anything wireless (laptops and such) are supposed to get an IP from the server between .20 and .30.

The problem is that it's not working. My server can reach the internet with no problem, but nothing else can. At one point if I made all the nodes static instead of DHCP, using my ISP's DNS servers, it would work - but that defeats the purpose of a local domain and a pain for laptops to be static one day, then change to DHCP for the office or whatever.

At one point, this was all working, but then I had to do some equipment upgrades and with all the misc. files that clog up even Windows 2003, I decided to do a reinstall and start fresh - now I'm in this rut.

Am I missing something? Plugged something in the wrong port or what? My server has 2 NIC's, one which is disabled and doesn't have anything plugged in - I didn't use it before when everything worked and hadn't planned on it again, but am open to trying something out that might fix/enhance what I've got so far.

Thanks for any help that can be provided.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Hi sorry to take a while to get to this....been very slammed with several big network jobs this month.

Are there any errors in event viewer? Application, System, and DNS.

When you ran DCPROMO..DNS would have automatically been installed. Can you expand the DNS server properties in MMC? Changed to advanced view...do you see lookup zones being populated?

[twwabw]

One thing I noticed is that whenever I've tried installing DNS, it fails on the diagnostics and I figure I can just fix it manually.

This is the first clue- can you elaborate on this? What do you mean it fails the diagnostics? So DCPROMO fails as well? It must. You mention 2 NICs, one disabled. Was it disabled via BIOS at install, or did you turn it off later through Windows?

Also, when you tried running DHCP were the clients picking up IPs and options? Would imagine they couldn't resolve, but could they ping external IPs?

[axemagic]

YeOldeStonecat - No error messages in Application Event Viewer, but the following was in System on 2/11/08 @ 10PM:

"The DHCP service has detected that it is running on a DC and has no credentials configured for use with Dynamic DNS registrations initiated by the DHCP service. This is not a recommended security configuration. Credentials for Dynamic DNS registrations may be configured using the command line "netsh dhcp server set dnscredentials" or via the DHCP Administrative tool."

And this was on 2/10/08 @ 2:21PM:

"The DNS server has encountered a critical error from the Active Directory. Check that the Active Directory is functioning properly. The extended error debug information (which may be empty) is "". The event data contains the error."

Nothing else as of late.

Under the DNS MMC, my object, "Server", shows my domain name under the "Forward Lookup Zones", and under the cached lookups I do see some ".coms" and such that look familiar (and some that don't - I don't go to .uk sites - ???).

twwabw - It's during DCPROMO, it churns away, and then stops at a point that says the diagnostic failed, and it gives 3 radio button options, "I've corrected, try again", "install DNS to correct it" (doesn't work), or "I'll configure manually later". Then it moves on, and I can then manually add my zones and forwarders. The disabled NIC is disabled before I even run DCPROMO or anything.

DHCP isn't working, and neither does any pinging.

Thanks for the help, guys.