SBS 2003 - Required DNS Records?

Major_Disaster · 24 Nov 2009 at 19:05

Hey,

Im trying to setup a test version of SBS 2003 R2, using VMware Workstation 7 (Windows 7 x64 is the host).

I set up the SBS VM with the, say, domain.local. The domain that i want to use with this (for email, VPN and RWW) is domain.co.uk. On the host where domain.co.uk is hosted, i have setup the following DNS records:

I have gone through the install fine, i then went on to using the configuartion wizards to set up email, VPN and RWW. In the connect to internet and email wizard, i created the web server certificate as: servername.domain.co.uk

I have set up appropiate port forwarding rules in my router (Netgear DG834PN).

First of all, do the DNS records look correct? Do i need any more?

Can someone explain, the @ in the MX record (and the @ in the A record)?

Further, i do not see understand if i have to have my mail.domain.co.uk match my servername.domain.co.uk - does that make sense?

Sorry for the confusing question, please ask anything that i didnt make clear.

Cheers

Major_Disaster · 24 Nov 2009 at 20:02

Appreciate the response. Understand the @ now, i think!

As i understand it, however, i need an MX record pointing to my mailserver, and then an A record for the mail server resolving to an IP address... which is what i have?

Its just that i cant get RWW to work, and its starting to really grind my gears!

Major_Disaster · 25 Nov 2009 at 17:59

Thanks for the replies.

Thats exactly what im confused about, in the CEICW, where you are asked to create a web server certificate - what is the FQDN of my sever?

For example, looking at this guide, mail.sbstest.com is used as the FQDN to create the certificate, but earlier in the same guide the name of the server is set as "SBS" - so shouldnt they use sbs.sbstest.com for example, or is the FQDN that i choose in a way completely arbitrary, as long as i have an A record to match?

I have forwarded the ports (and it still doesnt work, but i want to get this clear first). So, sorry for being dense, but do i need:

Server Name: servername
Local Domain: domain.local
Internet Domain: domain.co.uk
CIECW FQDN: servername.domain.co.uk
MX record: servername.domain.co.uk
A record: servername.domain.co.uk pointing to External IP

And finally, could i have all the above settings, but say change the MX record to: mail.domain.co.uk and then have a matching A record, so, for example email would be routed through mail.domain.co.uk and RWW etc would be servername.domain.co.uk

Sorry for being so long winded!

Major_Disaster · 25 Nov 2009 at 19:34

Thanks for bearing with me. Im going to setup as you reccomend and then wait for the DNS to propogate over the next 24 hours. So, to confirm, once and for all!

Server Name: servername
Local Domain: domain.local
Internet Domain: domain.co.uk
CIECW FQDN: portal.domain.co.uk
MX record: mail.domain.co.uk
A record: mail.domain.co.uk pointing to External IP
A record: portal.domain.co.uk pointing to External IP

Is that correct? Sorry for pulling teeth!

Edit: I have a attached a screenshot of the DNS control panel to make doubley sure. 78.xxx.xxx.xxx is the external IP of the router (195.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP used for web hosting - which is unrelated to any of this).

Major_Disaster · 26 Nov 2009 at 22:40

Hey,

I cant seem to get rid of the @ in the MX record - even if i leave the field blank a @ is automatically inseted when i update the DNS.

I think ive already got what you say (including the dot).

The problem is if i enter portal.domain.co.uk, or send an email to domain.co.uk i get a message logged in the router's interface along the lines of:

Thu, 2009-11-26 22:38:59 - TCP Packet - Source:192.168.0.2,55695 Destination:78.***.***.***,443 - [HTTPS rule match]

Thu, 2009-11-26 20:10:07 - TCP Packet - Source:144.82.100.156,47888 Destination:78.***.***.***,25 - [SMTP rule match]

So the requests are reaching the router, but either the browser says "The connection has timed out" or no email is ever received.

Whats going on?

Major_Disaster · 27 Nov 2009 at 12:18

Hey guys,

I really appreciates all the help but I finally managed to crack it! I was going crazy because I knew my port forwarding rules were set up correctly, so I simply went to a previous snap shot of the vm (before I ran CEICW) and ran it once more and suddenly every thing worked! Looks like rerunning the wizard over and over isn't the thing to do!

On a side note, just curious about how I would go
about setting up some dns so users could type:

owa.domain.co.uk and being sent to portal.domain.co.uk/reomote
rww.domain.co.uk and being sent to portal.domain.co.uk/exchange

Can this be done? Does it require CNAMEs?

Thanks again for all your help. Much appreciated.