NT Web Server using WebSite problem

[Bobb Menk]

> I can install NT okay, creating a computer name and a domain name at
> the appropriate points and making the machine a Primary Domain
> Controller. After NT is installed, WebSite installs just fine. Then
> the problem starts. WebSite serves to the browser running on that
> machine (the server). And it serves to users off our campus network,
> which I think means that the campus DNS server is correctly routing
> outside requests to the server IP address (http://157.242.64.225 or
> http://library.lmu.edu). But to other machines on our campus
> network, the server does not respond. I have tried renaming the (NT)
> domain and renaming the computer by changing the Identification tab
> in the Network utility. It tells me the changes have been made, but
> it still doesn't work for other on-campus computers. 

I haven't looked at this in detail in some time, but I'm running 
essentially the same setup and here's how I get it to work.

On your NT server look in \systemroot\system32\drivers\etc for a file 
called LMHosts.  This is a sample file that you should copy to a file 
called (specifically) Hosts in that same directory.

The hosts file is simply a table of IP addresses in parallel with  
machine names.  If you put a line in there that reads

157.242.64.225  library.lmu.edu

Then all your internal machines should be able to find you by name as 
well as number.  My recollection is that external stations consult 
the DNS, the server itself knows its own name, while other internal 
stations in the workgroup need to use the hosts table to translate 
between numeric and "English" names.

A workaround that I used to use till I figured out where this was was 
to have stations in the workgroup go to this internal server by IP 
number - then it worked fine.

Also - I switched from running NT as a standalone to NT as NT Domain 
Controller when I upgraded from 3.51 to 4.0 and it didn't seem to 
make an appreciable hit on performance for me.

Bobb Menk, Internet Librarian, Lane Memorial Library
Hampton, NH 03842  603-926-3368
bmenk at hampton.lib.nh.us