# Joining Computers to a Server 2003 Domain Controller



## Bad-Monkey (Jan 18, 2010)

Ok, I'm going to try to be as specific as possible, but feel free to ask any information I may have left out.... I'm trying to set up a small network (about 5 PC's... 3 with Windows 7 Ultimate, 2 with XP) with Windows Server 2003. I installed the server OS, and installed active directory (which prompted the installation of DNS) and added a role as a file server. The name of the server is server.private, and I gave it a static IP address of 192.168.1.101. The server and all of the other computers can access the internet, and the computers can ping each other, but nobody can ping the server's IP address or the server's name. I'm thinking the issue has to be with DNS. I only want the server internal (meaning I don't want the clients to go through the server to access the internet). The server only has 1 network adapter, so I figured if all the clients went through there, my throughput would be very low. When I try to add computers to the domain, i get the message "An active directory domain controller for the domain "server.private" could not be contacted. Ensure that the domain name is typed correctly." I feel like i'm missing a step or two here.... The server has a static IP address.... DNS is forwarding all other queries to my ISP's DNS address.... I even tried giving the client's a DNS address of the server's IP address. Still nothing. I read somewhere that I may have to turn DHCP off on the router, and have DHCP through the server. Is that necessary? I believe that would slow my throughput quite a bit. Any suggestions?? This is the first time building a network by myself, so cut me some slack. lol


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## srhoades (May 15, 2003)

You need to setup DHCP on the server and tell it to use the server's IP as the primary DNS server. You will need to turn off whatever is serving DHCP now before you can activae the DHCP scope on the server. Then either renew the IP addresses on the workstations or just reboot them so they can get a DHCP address from the server.

Your router will still be handling internet traffic so you won't have a throughput issues.


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