Re: How to setup a website from scratch! I have Server 2008 STD

On 6/29/2009 11:22 AM, Ace Fekay [Microsoft Certified Trainer] wrote:
Once registered, change the 'www' record that the registrar automatically setup in your DNS hosting section of your adminstration page or ISP's control panel (each ISP has their own terminology as far as how and where to setup it up at their webpage. If you are not sure how to do that, contact them. They will be more than happy to guide you, You want to change the IP they setup to your WAN IP that your ISP gave you at home. If you are not sure what your IP is, ask your ISP or check your invoice/bill.

I would also suggest that you set up an A record for the domain name its self and point it to the IP of your web server. More and more people are expecting "domain.tld" to go to the exact same place as "www.domain.tld". Further, they think things are broken if it does not. :(

In your router, create a port remap rule to remap port 80 to the internal IP of your server. If you are using SSL, create a map for 443 to the internal IP of the server. Make sure the server has a static (not automatic or DHCP) private internal IP. In your router, disable UPnP, which you don;t need to make this work. How to do that with your router depends on the model. Check your documentation.

I've had problems with port forwarding on 2wire modem / router in such as they will not port forward unless it is to a dynamic (DHCP) IP in the internal LAN. IMHO this is a design flaw of 2wire's.

In IIS, and keep in mind 2008 uses IIS7 and is very different than the previous version, you want to make sure the binding is set to Any Available IPs and not the server's IP. Create a hostheader called www.yourdomainname.com for the website.

I've not messed with IIS7 or 2008 so... Are you saying that IIS7 will not answer queries if it is only bound to the server's (internal) IP? This seems extremely odd to me.

Now you will probably need DNS installed internally. But this complicates matters if this is your home network and not a corporate network. If a corporate network, then DNS is already installed and running. Contact your admins to create the necessary name and IP. This is because when you setup the hostheader, it must resolve to the internal IP so you can get it from internally. Otherwise, when you type in your website name, such as www.domain.com, it won;t be able to find it inside. This is because the router will not do a 'u-turn' when there is a port remap and you are using your ISP's DNS addresses in your properties.

I've run in to more than one router that will indeed support the so-called "u-turn".

If this is a home network, and not a company with AD, instead of DNS, you can also get away with using a HOSTS file entry (system32\drivers\etc\hosts) by making a www.domain.com entry and giving it the IP of the internal server. Follow the example in the file. Use notepad to open it.

I would suggest that the OP setup DNS internally as well. DNS is not that difficult to administer and is so much more scalable than limited and difficult (read: annoying) to maintain hosts file for things like this. Not to mention that I've run in to some spy ware scanners that get bent out of shape if a hosts file is being used for this. (I believe this to be a design limitation of said spy ware scanners.)



Grant. . . .
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