network/server

Rahh

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Im running windows small business server 2003 and have 4 other computers hooked up to it between a router/firewall. What Im wanting to do is for the computers that are networked with the server, be able to still have internet connection even if the server is not on. They are still connected to the router and connection is still on but since they are tied in with the server when it goes down it makes the others down also.They should still have their connection since its present. I heard there should be a way to allow the networked comps not to be affected internetwise so they can still go about surfing if the server is down or being worked on.

I hope Im not being too confusing here...
 
It's probably that the server is the DNS server. You need to make sure the clients have backup DNS servers in their network config. The ones for your ISP will do.

This way if the server goes down the clients can still figure out what IP a url is for.
 
Yeah, the server is acutally handing out the dsl DNS's also. What I was thinking is making the dsl dns the primary and then the server as secondary? Would that work? Since the server is handing out the IP's if its turned off or down I dont see how the client pc's will get an IP. I think I may have to setup the router to handle dhcp if the server is down somehow...

Any ideas?
 
Rahh said:
Yeah, the server is acutally handing out the dsl DNS's also. What I was thinking is making the dsl dns the primary and then the server as secondary? Would that work? Since the server is handing out the IP's if its turned off or down I dont see how the client pc's will get an IP. I think I may have to setup the router to handle dhcp if the server is down somehow...

Any ideas?

I have my router handle dhcp with the dns servers being my server as primary and the router as secondary. I can take my server off line and the other systems don't even notice. They cruise along the internet like nothing ever happened.

What router are you using?
 
Thats exactly what Im trying to accomplish brom.. Im using Netgear router/firewall.
 
Yea, you need to have the server DNS in there. I prefer to have it as primary. I also have set up a linux DNS and DHCP server that hands out the IPs and the Windows Server has the linux DNS as backups.

That way if the windows server goes down clients won't be able to work AD stuff, but they can still boot up and get to the net thanks to the linux DHCP/DNS server.

They can usually log in via cached information so it's a system that works fine for me. The only trouble I get is a ton of DNS errors about the Linux DNS not being a dynamic updatable DNS server...oh well...I don't care. :D
 
Rahh said:
Thats exactly what Im trying to accomplish brom.. Im using Netgear router/firewall.

So why do you have your server handing out IP's then? Remove the DHCP service from your server and just let the router hand out IP's. This assuming your using a budget NAT router that is also a DHCP server.
 
ktwebb said:
So why do you have your server handing out IP's then? Remove the DHCP service from your server and just let the router hand out IP's. This assuming your using a budget NAT router that is also a DHCP server.

He should also just do static IP addresses if the network is small. I have all my machines except my laptop (it moves around too much) on static addresses. Makes life much easier.
 
If youre running AD and the server is off...what happens if your client pc's need network resources? For that small of a network i would use peer to peer unless security is a big concern, in which case the server would only be one clien of the p2p network...fileserver maybe?
 
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