Initial Setup - DNS Question

So you have an existing DNS server, and you have added a translation for the IP address of you new Mac OS X Server box into that DNS server database, and your new Mac OS X Server references your existing DNS server as its DNS server, and your new Mac OS X Server reports its identity as you expect and without any diagnostics?

Um, what's your question, again? 🙂

Various of the functions provided by Mac OS X Server expect DNS services.

Mac OS X Server does not need to be the DNS server.

do I need to run the DNS service off the mac server if I intend to run the podcast and ical services?

The server needs valid DNS, both forward and reverse, for any service you want/expect to run on this machine.

Whether that DNS comes from the server itself, some other DNS server on the LAN, or some server on the other side of the world is completely irrelevant - as long as it can properly resolve its name and IP address you're set.

Yes I have a DNS server and before I setup the mac server I set up foward and reverse DNS entries on it for the mac server.

In all likelihood, your DNS configuration is in error.

So I guess my question is do I need to run the DNS service off the mac server if I intend to run the podcast and ical services?

Absolutely not.

After I set those services up I and restart the server I get a knetworkerror when I open serveradmin and the computer starts to crawl. Is that because I did not setup the DNS service on the mac or is it a different issue?

That usually means your DNS is in error.

Again, +you need correct DNS services for your server (and from your clients), but you do not need to run those DNS services on the Mac server.+

Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server are both perfectly willing and able to reference and to use DNS services running on Windows, Linux, HP-UX, Plan9, OpenVMS, Solaris, FreeBSD, Tru64 Unix or pretty much any other OS that can run a DNS server, so long as those DNS services are correctly configured.

Specifically for this case (and assuming you're running Server Admin on a client box and not directly on your new Mac OS X Server), you also need correct DNS services available from your client when you are running various services including Server Admin, and if your client is not correctly referencing your LAN DNS, then it is distinctly possible that your server is a bystander here.

From your client and from your server, launch Terminal.app and issue the following commands:

dig yourservername.example.com
dig -x your.server.ip.address

and post the results.

Use the changeip command to determine that DNS is configured correctly. Using Terminal in the server itself or via SSH run: sudo changeip -checkhostname. Output should be the FQDN of the server matching its IP address and "Success. There is nothing to change".

During the initial configuration, did the server found the record that you created for him in your Windows server? If not, then the DNS server will fire using the server name as zone, for ex. if your server is named chargertv.pachs.local, then you have a zone called: chargertv.pachs.local.

Kostas

Do you have a DNS server running? The .local top-level domain (TLD) stuff is reserved for Bonjour, though sometimes with conflicting use within Windows DNS servers that don't have registered domains.

Mixing a DNS server serving the .local private domain with Bonjour serving .local can get things scrozzled, per the Apple network engineers.

I'd suggest getting a real and registered domain name for your local network, and not operating in a domain that you don't have registered.

If that's not feasible, then I'd use something like server.robinson.pachs, if you want to use a bogus domain and a bogus TLD. The TLD here being "pachs" given your use and given that it appears comparatively unlikely to become a new TLD in the near future, and I'd assign a domain within that TLD. (Having a real and registered domain eliminates the risk of colliding with the domains and the TLDs that the ICANN folks or the ISO country code folks might be bringing online in the future.)

Picking a bogus domain and a bogus TLD can be harder than it might look, too. There are 250? or so TLDs online, and more are arriving.

Given the mention of DHCP, recognize that Mac OS X Server needs a static IP address. Some folks use DHCP with a static IP, though my preference is to use the static IP in the controller and avoid the dependency on the DHCP server. (This might be less of an issue for your environment. With what I deal with, the Mac servers usually provide many of the network services, so adding a dependency on an external DHCP largely serves to add a dependency on something (else) that can potentially break.)