The goal of this article is to present a quick, tried and true method for installing a Windows NT network utilizing TCP/IP as the protocol. We are going to assume
that this is a simple installation. No installation is ever quite this simple. However, providing for every situation is something you can only get from your own
experience, and is not something you can get from a magazine article.
What we are going to cover is DHCP, WINS, and DNS installations. The network configuration is as follows. Two Windows NT 4.0 Servers are installed on the network
along with forty workstations along with an IBM AS/400. For the IP address range we are going to use in this example network, we are going to use the reserved Class
C address range. If the network is going to have an Internet connection, most smaller networks use address translation behind a firewall. In the case of having
a direct connection, simply use the address range that your ISP gives you.
Our primary server name is going to be BART. HOMER is the name of the server used to host the Intranet, and the AS/400’s name is MARGE. The TCP/IP domain name is
vf.net and the Windows NT domain name is VFNET. These servers all will have assigned static IP addresses. See the network diagram below (Figure 1).
BART is installed as a Primary Domain Controller. BART has the DHCP, DNS, and WINS services installed on it. HOMER has IIS installed on it, and it offers HTTP,
and FTP services. It is also an Exchange 5.0 server for e-mail. Normally a second Windows NT server will be backup for DNS and WINS, however, since many installations
will not have more than one server, this will not be covered. There is also a network printer called Maggie.
DHCP, DNS and WINS are all installed under the Services Tab. This installation is simple. Select the Add button, and one by one select Microsoft DHCP Server, Microsoft DNS Server, and finally Microsoft WINS Server. The DHCP service installs with the DHCP Relay service. This is not necessary in a simple installation with only one subnet and can be removed. However, in any network with a more complicated network, it should be left installed.
Creating the Primary Zone
To start the DNS Manager, it is under Start, Programs, Administrative Tools. When you first start the DNS Manager, there will be no entries, even though the DNS
service has started. Under the DNS menu, select the option for New Server.
Enter the IP address for your Windows NT server (Figure 3). After selecting OK, you will be prompted for this to be a Primary or Secondary Zone (Figure 4). Select
Primary.
Your next screen will be a prompt for the zone name (Figure 5), and the file to use as the database file. Our example uses VF.NET as our domain name. BART will
be the name of our Windows NT Server.
Some basic records are then filled in for our use (Figure 6). These records are the Name Server record (NS), the Start of Authority (SOA) and the first A record,
which consists of the server’s name and address.
Starting Values
The first thing you should do is to double click the SOA record to get to its properties (Figure 7). Make sure that the Primary Name Server DNS Name is the correct
one for your server and that the name of the Responsible Person is the primary technical contacts email address for your network. Note that there is no @ sign in
the address. The serial number shown is very important. Every time you wish to have your files replicated to other DNS servers, this serial number must be unique.
The normal way to do it is to make it the current date (12041997 for example). The other defaults are usually acceptable.
Reverse Resolution
You must create the reverse resolution domain. Highlight the server address, in this case 192.168.1.1, and then DNS, New Zone. Now you will enter as the name of
the new zone the reverse of the primary three numbers followed by in-addr.arpa. In our case this will be 1.168.192.in-addr.arpa as the name, and accept the file
name also (Figure 8). This domain will be created just as the above, and again, you must check the SOA record to ensure you have the correct names for the contact
and serial number!
Next highlight the zone name, and select properties. Go to the WINS Reverse Lookup tab, and click the Use WINS Reverse Lookup. Then enter your domain name under
DNS Host Domain (Figure 9).
Adding Host Records
We are now ready to start adding default records. Any other servers in your network will need to be added as new hosts. Right click on the zone you wish to add
a host to (This should be VF.NET) and select ADD HOST. Enter just the name of the hosts, the IP address, and make sure that the Add Associated PTR Record box is
checked.
Note that your servers should be using static IP addresses. They should not be assigned addresses by DHCP; this is for the workstations.
Canonical Names
These are best known as “aliases” for existing servers. An example is best. When someone types in his or her web browser www.vf.net, nothing will currently show
up. There isn’t a server with that name. How are they supposed to know that its bart.vf.net? Well, why not just name the server www.vf.net? Then you would need
a separate server for mail and for FTP services. Instead we alias the server. Now it is possible to have many names for the same server. Right click on the domain,
and select New Record. Select CNAME Record, type in your alias (WWW, MAIL, or FTP for our examples), and then give it the full name of the host. Repeat for all
necessary items. You should now have several CNAMES listed for a single host A record.
Adding Other Records
A mail exchanger record (MX) needs to be created. This record will tell a remote SMTP server which server to deliver mail to for your domain name. Create by right
clicking on the domain, and then selecting New Record (Figure 11). Select the MX record type, then fill in the host name mail, the DNS name mail.vf.net, and give
it a preference number of 1. In special circumstances, you may need to have multiple mail servers, in this case, add another MX record, with the secondary server
having a higher preference number. If you will have multiple mail records, you may wish to have the primary start with a higher number such as 10. This way you
can add new mail servers to be the primary easily. Please note that we gave the mail server name mail.vf.net even though the real name of the mail server is HOMER.
The MX record’s Mail Exchange Server name must be either an A (host) record or a CNAME record to another host name. There is a report that some mail clients have
trouble when pointing to a CNAME record.
A WKS record, or Well Known Service, is another type of record. The WKS record lists what services are available on a particular server, such as telnet, finger,
ftp, and many others. This type of record isn’t usually needed. If you think you may need this type of record, or many of the various other types, you will want
to find some of the major resource materials for Domain Name Service.
Your final configuration should show the domain as shown in Figure 5. It is doubtful you will need more records than this in most installations. Enterprise wide
systems may need backup DNS servers, and many other advanced features, however, that is for another article.
Conclusion
I sincerely hope that this article has been a help to you. While many consultants and Windows NT professionals know about trust relationships, and creating user
accounts, TCP/IP is in general a bit more complicated. And, since there are so many variables, coming to some sort of usual method for us to use simplifies later
maintenance. I try to make sure that all the engineers in my company follow these basic procedures, so that anyone may follow up and not be completely in the dark
on the network configuration of a client.