Help with DNS setup for LAN only

Forwarders are unnecessary, and (if they don't have the translation cached) just add another "hop" to the DNS translation. I'd remove them. (This is referenced in that HoffmanLabs article.)

In the System Preferences > Network settings on the DNS server, confirm that the DNS server has the IP address 127.0.0.1 as its DNS server address. This address is only for the DNS server and only when referencing itself.

Confirm that there are NO other DNS servers referenced, whether in the DNS server's own DNS server settings, or in the DNS server's DNS server forwarder settings, or in the DHCP server settings in your gateway router.

If you've been overhauling the DNS settings on this box, then you may also need to reboot the server to completely reset the environment on the server.

If the above steps and the reboot don't clear this, then (as a start) issue the following three shell commands andsubstituting your particular host name for the string "server.example.com" in the second command, and post the output:

$ scutil --get HostName

$ dscacheutil -q host -a name server.example.com

$ dscacheutil -q host -a ip_address 192.168.4.2

If you're inclined to obfuscate your domain name in what you post, please change only the domain name portion over to "example.net" in what you post. (That way, I'm not trying to figure out what's real and what's been changed.)

There's an entity named Companyname.com Inc, in Orlando, Florida, so (unless that's your corporation), you'll want to reference "example.com" or "example.net" or such when you're seeking to obfuscate your domain. I'll assume you're obfuscating your domain, and you're not the Companyname.com folks. (If my assumption here is incorrect and you really are Companyname.com, then there might be some other considerations in play.)

ps: Do not use the .local Bonjour top-level domain as your FQDN; as your unicast DNS domain.

What Server Admin sees in its left navigation isn't critical. Once the local network DNS services are working, you can remove the entry from the left navigation of Server Admin and re-add it using your unicast DNS FQDN, or you can (while you're connected via the LAN) continue using the Bonjour name with the .local top-level domain.

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Notes:

• Bonjour and multicast DNS and mDNS can be (for the sake of this discussion) considered the same thing.
• What you're setting up with DNS services within Server Admin is also called unicast DNS.

Did you intend to have both "example.com" and "example.net" listed there? Are those domains really different? I'm going to assume that was an obfuscation error. (This is part of the "fun" of obfuscation, unfortunately. Of having to differentiate errors in the actual configuration from errors that were introduced during the obfuscation.)

>Oddly, even though I had manually assigned our Comcast gateway's DNS to Google DNS IPs, the gateway summary still shows up as Comcast's DNS server IPs. So I removed the manually assigned Google DNS IPs from the gateway.

The gateway (or whatever you're using as your DHCP server) should be configured with the DNS server address of 192.168.4.2. All other hosts on your network (if you're planning to use your local DNS everywhere on your LAN) should also reference 192.168.4.2, either through an explicit static configuration, or as the address that was received from the DHCP server.

And as for IP routing, are all your hosts, network printers, network gateways, DHCP servers, etc., all in the range of 192.168.4.1 to 192.168.4.254? (They should be, if you're using a /24-class 255.255.255.0 subnet mask.)

But then I don't know where this configuration has gone off the rails... (Over the years, I've seen and have made my own configuration errors, I've been "bagged" by DNS caches, and I've hit various bugs in DNS implementations.) What you have stated here should work.

I'd start at the top of the DNS configuration article, and not stray from what is written there. That there has been Google DNS and have had ISP DNS configured at the gateway does mean there were some areas that have strayed from the article. I'd suggest following the DNS server configuration directions exactly.

Setting up DNS services with OS X Server isn't difficult, but it can be a little fussy.

If you don't understand something that's written in that article -- or if you believe you need to enter something different than what's listed there -- then please stop and ask about it. Either ask here, or ask over there. (This feedback also helps improve that article.)

Straying from what's written in that article is certainly and entirely feasible, but that's something best left until after the adminstrator is more familiar with running a DNS server. Once you know how and why and where you can stray, there are all sorts of things you can do within a DNS configuration.