Server/Website issue

[Neutron]

I installed a new server for my wife's company back in Dec. It's their one and only server.

Ever since I did that, they can't access their own website that's hosted by their ISP. DHCP is hosted by the ISP's router.

Each computer (6 total) is configured for the primary DNS to be the server's IP Address with secondary being the ISP

The only thing I can think of is the domain name and website domain are the same name.

Any suggestions?

I haven't added a forwarding record in the server's DNS, but I figured the ISP's address being secondary in the workstations would suffice.

 

[RandallA]

You may need to add the DNS record manually to point to their website in the new server. Do you still have the old server? You can check in the DNS console if the record was added manually.

 

[Neutron]

This is their first ever server.

Before all of their computers were on a workgroup.

 

[mikew]

If their web site is on the same network, you need to have them pointed to the internal IP address instead of the external. Have an internal DNS record point the www.domain.com to the internal server's ip address.

 

[Neutron]

Their website is hosted by the ISP, not internal on their network.

 

[RandallA]

Their website is hosted by the ISP, not internal on their network.

Add the DNS record in the new server. Your local clients are going to your internal server to resolve the IP, so just added manually and the problem is solved.

 

[Neutron]

I can't believe I forgot this.

What kind of record would I be adding?

 

[RandallA]

On ours it's under DNS - Server Name - Forward Lookup Zones - yourdomain.com. We just called the record "www" and it has the url and the IP address.

I know this because we changed the hosting company for the site and had to update the record with the IP address because nobody could see the website from inside the company.

 

[Neutron]

Got that added.

They have several domain names that point to that site, so they can type in XYZ Consulting and go to their company website.

xyz.com is an example of course. Will I need to create more records for this?

 

[RandallA]

If the record is already there, it should work. I would just verify the IP address in the record. Enter the ip address in IE and see if it works, of course do this internally.

 

[Neutron]

I had my wife test it out at work. It wouldn't do it until I had her log off/back on her computer.

She's able to get to it now. She's going to check with her coworkers to make sure they can get to it as well.


Thanks for your help!!

 

[Foxbat]

I would recommend setting up the Forwarding on their Windows Server's DNS server to point to the ISP's DNS server. That will take care of any name that the server can't resolve, and it will speed up the name resolution on the clients since they won't have to wait for the primary DNS to come back with a negative response before going on to the secondary DNS server. Plus, if the ISP changes their DNS addresses, you won't have to visit all the clients (or change the DHCP settings. You do have them set up for DNS, right?)

 

[Neutron]

I do.

What kind of record would I set up for that on the DNS Server?

 

[RandallA]

Go to DNS and right click on the server. Click on Properties and go to the Forwarders tab. Enter the ISP's DNS server's IP addresses.

Note that I had this setup but for some reason the local clients will not resolve the new ip address to the website. So I added it manually.

 

[Neutron]

Hmm... I must have added the forwarders back in December when I set up their server. Both addresses were in there.