Windows Server

How to Setup Windows Server 2012

by Isaac D. Mao

In the following scenario, we've just installed Windows Server 2012 onto a virtual machine (Oracle Virtual Box) and will then add essential roles/features such as DNS, DHCP, and etc.

1. Installing DNS

• Assign static IP to the Windows Server 

             

•  Go to the Server Manager and click on [Add Roles and Features] to install the DNS server role.

             

•  Add a new zone in the form of <department.company>.com

             

• Notice that two records (Name Server - NS and Start of Authority - SOA) are added automatically to the DNS server. We need to configure the properties of the two records.
• SOA identifies the base DNS info about the domain (which is the primary name server here).
• SOA: We'd better change the Serial Number as something like 2014101106
• SOA: We'd better enter [nas1.dun.mao.com.] for the Primary Server.
• SOA: We'd better enter [hostmaster.dun.mao.com.] for the Responsible person. 
• Note: The above two entries end with a period (.).  
• NS is about authoritative name servers for the zone.
• NS: Remove the existing entry and add  [nas1.dun.mao.com] and [10.0.2.15].

• We can then use a Registrar to propagate the new DNS name server(s) to the Internet.
• In the properties of the DNS Server, there is a tab called [Root Hints]. We use root hints to prepare authoritative servers for non-root zones so that they can discover authoritative servers that manage domains at a higher level or in other subtrees of the DNS domain namespace. By default, Root Hints contains records for the Internet root servers. If we are using the DNS on a private network, we can edit or replace the default records with internal root servers.
• With the following setting, the DNS server will only respond to DNS request on the 10.0.2.15, which means only hosts on the same network subnet of 10.0.2.15, or hosts with a router that connects them to that same segment, can have submit queries to this DNS server. 

                  

• When a Unix-based DNS server (BIND) acts as the primary DNS server, to enable the Windows DNS server to load data from a Unix-based DNS server, the Windows DNS server should enable BIND secondaries to allow Windows DNS server can see BIND’s name and FQDN.