Richard Baylis

Yeah, I get that anything the server doesn't know about is forwarded to the public DNS entries, but does that work only for clients that authenticate on the domain? What about connecting clients to the router that I don't want to join to the domain? i.e. other people's PCs I am building or repairing. If the server is on will it still do DNS lookups and forwarding for clients that aren't logged in to it but that can see it on the network? And do you set the router DNS entries to use only the server IP address? This seems to be something that all explanations on how to set things up seem to gloss over. Although they'll discuss the Server network config at great length, which the SBS wizard generally sorts out for you without any trouble. And if the server is off is there a way in which the clients can automatically fall back to a network setting where they don't use the server DNS setting, but have the ISP DNS servers instead? In other words, the ones it would forward to if the server was on. I do find it bizarre that we seemed to have ended up with an either / or situation and no way of intelligently allowing both to co-exist. Why is it such a mission for devices authenticating on the server to use one configuration and everything else has a different setup that doesn't rely on the server even being on, let alone not logging in to it? And anyone who can explain why the Add User and Computer wizard isn't doing the job of creating the list of users and computers it has just created will be hailed a hero. It's driving me to distraction.

OK, thanks for that. The SBS box seems already configured for that but to follow your recommendation do I have to blank out the existing ISP DNS entries on the router? Or have just the one entry that points to the server? But I guess that means I won't be able to connect any non-domain device to my router and get out to the Internet in that case? Or will it be able to use the DNS routing provided by the server without having to authenticate on the domain? I'd certainly like to continue to use DHCP on the router so I can just hook up any device and get handed an IP. Or will the server also issue an IP address to the device even though it hasn't done a network login? Do you think think the lack of an entry on the router pointing DNS to the server is the reason I haven't been able to set up Users and Computers successfully using the wizard?

I’m struggling with setting up an SBS 2003 server in a home environment and none of the advice I have read seems to really address the issues clearly enough for what I want to achieve. My server has one NIC, is statically IP’d, and as a result of using the setup wizard has the server IP being the Primary DNS and WINS, with further DNS entries being the ISP provided values (which are currently in the router as the only DNS addresses). The router IP is the Default Gateway for the server and I elected to continue to use DHCP services of the router. So far so good. I often see recommendations to turn off DHCP on the router and use the SBS DHCP service, but regardless of that never any advice as to what to do with the existing DNS settings in the router. Shouldn’t the server IP be in there somewhere? Otherwise how would the clients resolve the server name? BUT….I still want to connect laptops and desktops I am building or repairing without having to join the domain and talk to the server. And I want to cater for instances where the server is off or otherwise unavailable. So can I leave the router doing DHCP, and the DNS settings in the router using an ISP provided value as the primary, and put my server as the secondary? All the clients would be set to obtain DHCP and DNS services automatically. It seems to me that would cope with any client getting an IP; non-domain devices being able to route to the Internet with DNS provided by the ISP; yet domain bound devices when trying to resolve the server name would find that met by the secondary service listed (the first obviously having failed because the ISP DNS won’t know the name of my server). And if the server was unavailable a domain bound PC could still connect standalone and get to the Internet. Or doesn’t it work like that? If not, can someone clearly describe for me why not? My other problem is when I set up users and computers using the wizard it completes without error (very slowly) but doesn’t create the c:\smallbusiness folder. So it has the users and computers set up but won’t list them or allow you to maintain them again through the wizard. Advice read online suggests this is a problem with TCP/IP and RAS being bound in the incorrect order and goes on to tell you how to check it. But I don’t have the Bindings tab on the Network screens that they describe. Is this old advice that doesn’t apply for SBS 2003 SP2? On a previous attempt to build an SBS server this worked fine so I’ve no idea why it doesn’t do it this time. I also didn’t set up Exchange server as I didn’t want it to start grabbing email before I’d got the clients set up and connecting to their mailboxes. I’m not even sure I’ve got all the settings for that straight in my mind as well. Anyone know how I should respond to the wizard for a standard ISP mail service (I use Blueyonder). The server also whinges that some services failed to start and although I’ve looked at the logs I find them pretty obscure and I’ve no idea which ones represent real trouble and which ones are due to the fact I haven’t set everything up fully yet. Sorry about the length of posting and the multiple questions but they seem all linked in my mind to the same problems. Any help gratefully appreciated.

Hello all. I've found this site because I was searching for help that had been given others on SBS issues and was impressed with the site. I've been in IT for over 30 years but left the server side stuff to others. Yet now by my own desires to get my home PCs organised with centralised services I find myself not quite able to get an SBS server fully up and running. I'm going to apologise here as well as in the post itself for the length and complexity of it, but it is the only way to describe where I have got to and what I am trying to achieve. Looking forward to helping answer other people's questions on areas where I do have expertise and being a useful contributor. Richard.