MS Server 2003 setup Q's from a newbie...

[smartermoney]

I have some Q's about setting up a server in my house. I have setup and built a"server" computer (basically a computer with dual lan cards and tons of HD space)

I want the following.....
Run a(maybe 2) web site('s) from it ( i have a static ip....i have a reg domain from 1&1 (no hosting just the domain))
Serve as a file and print server (serve 7-9 computers including PC and MAC's)
setup so email is retreived from isp's
host email for domain
prob more but i cannot think of it.

Which is better...the standard or SBE2003? i have the following available...
SBE 2003 premium
2003 enterprise edition
2003 standard
2003 web edition

i started setting up the SBE2003 but i have never setup a server before so i had a few Q's.
1. during the setup it asked i name the server something like...name.info or something (example...jonesfamily.local) but it also stated if i used .local i could not use a mac in the networking which i have so i was going to name it like jonesfamily.home or something but it then stated that i was not going to be very protected....what shopuld i do?

or should it benamed the same as my web site.......example....jonesfamily.com.
when setting up how does it work to setup my web site... meaning how does it communicate with the web? i guess i have to go to 1&1 and setup the DNS with them? change something with them?

i really need some help with this...please let me know if anyone can help. Even would be nice if i could walk through the setup sometime over IM.
Thanks

 

[hopejr]

Originally posted by: smartermoney
Run a(maybe 2) web site('s)

You need more than one ip address to do more than one site, or put the other site on another port (simple to do with IIS).

Serve as a file and print server (serve 7-9 computers including PC and MAC's)

Watch out with macs if you want to print to a canon multifunction centre (I've had that problem - no mac drivers).

setup so email is retreived from isp's

May as well just access it the normal way.

host email for domain

Set up a POP3 service - easy to do in Server.

Which is better...the standard or SBE2003? i have the following available...
SBE 2003 premium
2003 enterprise edition
2003 standard
2003 web edition

IMHO, Enterprise Edition would be the best, because it's got everything, but it may be overkill (maybe someone else could comment...)

i started setting up the SBE2003 but i have never setup a server before so i had a few Q's.
1. during the setup it asked i name the server something like...name.info or something (example...jonesfamily.local) but it also stated if i used .local i could not use a mac in the networking which i have so i was going to name it like jonesfamily.home or something but it then stated that i was not going to be very protected....what shopuld i do?

What the...? My ibook is called ibook.local. That's really weird. Generally it would be the name of your domain with an identifying host name at the beginning, e.g. servername.jonesfamily.com, i would expect.

This is all I can think of. Maybe someone else has ideas to add (or corrections to make )

 

[spyordie007]

You need more than one ip address to do more than one site, or put the other site on another port (simple to do with IIS).

Or you could use different host headers for the sites. Many hosting companies do this.

i started setting up the SBE2003 but i have never setup a server before so i had a few Q's.
1. during the setup it asked i name the server something like...name.info or something (example...jonesfamily.local) but it also stated if i used .local i could not use a mac in the networking which i have so i was going to name it like jonesfamily.home or something but it then stated that i was not going to be very protected....what shopuld i do?

The domain used for Active Directory can be made up (i.e. jonesfamily.local); I'm not sure what the issue is here with Macs (I've never had problems with it, but I've also never used .local for AD). In most AD deployments DNS will be setup to mirror the public dns space (i.e. mydomain.com). In your case jonesfamily.com is probably going to be enough.

when setting up how does it work to setup my web site... meaning how does it communicate with the web? i guess i have to go to 1&1 and setup the DNS with them? change something with them?

It doesn?t really "communicate with the web". Remember that in simplest terms DNS resolves host addresses (server.domain.com) to ip addresses (65.100.x.x). Probably the simplest thing for you to do while you're starting out is to have your hosting company have the www.jonesfamily.com domain resolve to your server's IP address; they would also have a "MX" record (mail exchanger) setup to point email to the address of your server.

Okay with all that said I highly recommend you stop and do some homework before proceeding any further. Do some reading. Maybe buy a book or two and plan carefully. It sounds like you are really over your head in this project and there are some things that once in place are very hard to make changes to (i.e. the domain name you pick) and other things you simply cannot change at all. TAKE YOUR TIME, it will be worth your while.

Good Luck,

-Erik