I've been using the DynDNS.org service for years now, but I want to explore another option which would be having a local DNS server.

I don't know much at all about setting up a DNS server, what's involved etc.

I want to setup an internal network so that when I type for example "sitexyz" into my browser, it'll bring up the site from my MBP which is running an Apache Web server.

Has anyone here setup a DNS server before? What's involved? I looked up some information on google and found that you can do it windows but you have to have a windows server OS to do it. XP Pro doesn't have the software to do it.

 

DNS is fairly easy to implement, yet the cause of 90% of the problems to an internal network so if set up improperly it could be hellish. If you had AD to the mix it's now a core service that must be carefully constructed and managed.

If your needs are fairly simple and you are dealing with a non-AD windows server you can run DNS. I highly suggest a brief read of the technet articles on DNS setup. Once you set up a primary zone (ex: contoso.com) you can create local A records that represent different machines in your environment (developer.contoso.com, etc.).

One caveat is that if you are going to point machines to look for DNS records on the local server, you are going to have to provide forwarding DNS numbers to resolve routable IP addresses that exist outside of your local network (www.cnn.com). Ofcourse if this is just a small internal setup and you don't need to go past the local gateway you do not need to set up forwarders.

 

Also, you can use BIND for linux, it's free and it does the same thing but is a little harder to work with especially if you are not a linux guy.

**BIND EDIT**

http://www.dns.net/dnsrd/servers/windows.html

They have a version for windows.

 

Lastly, you could use local host files if DNS is not what you want to do.


Sorry for all the posts.

 

The need for forwarders is a myth. Forwarding has its place but not needed for such a simple setup.

 

Well like I said if he needs to, he can have the DNS server point to outside DNS servers. I don't see the harm either way.

 

Thanks for the feedback eclipse. I should have been more descriptive of my setup.

I do all my development now on a laptop. Although I still have my desktop, I do not do any developing on it and don't plan on it. At one point in time I did have a Linux Server which is just sitting here now because for some time now I haven't been developing at home, but now I'm beginning to start up again.

I have a MBP which I have apache 2.2, CF8 Developer Edition, PHP and MySQL installed. I want to utilize the vhost directives in Apache to configure multiple sites and point them to different folders so that I can set each vhost up as close as possible to their production versions. Unfortunately, when I set the servername directive in the Apache conf files, they aren't recognized by my network because obviously they don't point anywhere. In this case, they will all point to my MBP so that my Apache installation can serve all the sites I work on. And if possible I'd like for it to work whether I'm connected to a network or not, so I guess it would be an internal machine only setup if that makes sense.

I hope this makes sense and I hope that there is some solution for me to do this. Again, forgive my ignorance when it comes to networking, I don't know much about it. I've always known just enough to get by.

 

why arent you just using your hosts file? in OSX just manage it with NetInfo manager. seems like it would more than suffice at meeting your needs.

 

Yeah, thats exactly why after I explained DNS i added that last post about hosts. Sounds like you don't need a naming service.

 

Unfortunatly, I'm not using OSX as my primary OS [yet]. I'm still using Windows.

I want to make the switch over, but I couldn't afford to buy the Adobe CS3 Bundle of the software I needed for OSX as it was a little more expensive than their windows counterparts. I got a great deal on the Windows version that was about $500 cheaper than the OS X version.

Anyway, following your info about local host files, I did a search in and found some info about it and modified a vhost in my apache installation and it worked. I got a 403 error when it served the page, but at least it served the pages for the servername I used which was what I was looking for. http://www.ezlan.net/host.html

Thanks for the info and sorry for the confusion.

 

Well #1Stunna....Er I mean Sly, Windows has hosts files as well....

 

All these years and I never knew this feature of windows. Someone kick me for being a dipshit.

 

HAHA! yeah! I remember fucking with the host files in my N+ class in Windows! It should be in the C:\Windows\sytem32\drivers\etc directory the file is called hosts obviously. Open it in notepad and it should look like this: