DNS problems

[tuunade98]

I got a server with windows server 2012 installed on to it, which holds all of my media files and other important files that i need shared over the network( I know i could've just installed a simple OS on to the machine instead). On all the computers that are in the same domain as the server, do i set their dns ip addresses the same as the server's ip address? At the moment i got my server's ip address set to as the preferred DNS and google's 8.8.8.8 as an alternate DNS, is this setup okay? Before I had preferred set to my server's ip address but my alternate left blank, this caused unstable internet connection issues and I do not understand why. Everytime i would turn on my PC the internet connection would cut out for everyone on the network and while I'm doing simple things like browsing the web or even when im not using my pc but it is left turned on, the internet connection randomly cuts out, why does this happen?

 

I also forgot to mention that my pc is the only pc that is able to join a domain due to OS limitations, yes kinda stupid and irrelevant to have a server due to this but i only noticed this when i tried getting all the other computer's on the network to join a domain and couldn't, I didn't know that they had all home version OSes installed -.-, so when i share everything I kinda have to set permissions to "everyone" for people who are not in the domain to be able to access shared files. I believe that to be able to share files off the server/pc I need to set a static ip address and this is why im having DNS problems.

[Guest]

What exactly have you got setup? Have you set the server up as a domain controller, DNS and file server?

[tuunade98]

I just got DNS and AD DS installed on teh server. '

 

I haven't exactly done anything techincal with the server 2012 OS, really i could've just installed a windows OS and used that instead on the server computer. Its main purpose is to run a plex server over the network, so that everyone in my LAN can watch the movies that i have put on the server and of course download things. It is basically just a massive storage computer, and for watching media files over the network. 

 

EDIT: the setup that i had still causes connection issues, what should i be setting my DNS to? Changing it to a dynamic ip address fixes it, but that is not ideal as i want to share things over the network.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, tuunade98 said:

I just got DNS and AD DS installed on teh server. '

 

I haven't exactly done anything techincal with the server 2012 OS, really i could've just installed a windows OS and used that instead on the server computer. Its main purpose is to run a plex server over the network, so that everyone in my LAN can watch the movies that i have put on the server and of course download things. It is basically just a massive storage computer, and for watching media files over the network. 

 

EDIT: the setup that i had still causes connection issues, what should i be setting my DNS to? Changing it to a dynamic ip address fixes it, but that is not ideal as i want to share things over the network.

A DNS server is simply where a client can translate a host name to an address. The reason you'd use an internal DNS in small environment is so that you can have servers with hostnames instead of IP addresses. Eg for me I've got Hyperion as my Plex and DNS server, Xenyx as a storage target and Calix as a testing environment running Halcyon NSS and EC.

 

You would always want to statically assign the server IP address from the DHCP controller, whether that be on the router or via DHCP relay to a dedicated server. Once you've statically assigned ip addresses, you can put internal DNS records for each host name.

 

[tuunade98]

I'm still a little confused, so what dns address should i set my server to and wat dns for my personal computer + other computers on the network?