DHCP

best to disable DHCP on the router and use a static IP scheme and use two NIC's on your PDC. One for the external adapter[static IP address] and one for the internal adapter [uses DHCP to service client computers]. This allows you to use a seperate computer connected to the router to test your Network setup [exchange mail etc.] I have one stand alone connected to the router and a test bed W2K Server connected to the router. Both with static IP addresses on their NIC's. Using port fowarding, I can direct inbound SMTP port 25 traffic to the W2K server network [for testing Exchange Email] and send a message to my hotmail account which I access via the stand alone computer connected to the router. I reply back to the email from the W2K networkwith my stand alone. Works quite well for testing purposes. Using DHCP on the router doesn't allow you to use the Port Fowarding features of the router if you want to put in a Web server that is Off the W2K domain Network [good idea for security purposes] and not on a DMZ.

if this is a home environment, it would be easier to just leave the router as the dhcp handler and just change the tcp/ip properties of your server to reflect the addess of the router as the dhcp server

Since you can have only one DHCP server on a network, I'd disable the router service and use the DHCP server in Win2K. Active Directory requires the use on DNS on your server, and DNS can be automatically updated by the DHCP service in Win2K when host IP addresses change. If you rely on your router for DHCP, anytime the IP addresses it assigns to different hosts change you'll have to manually update your DNS database.

First things first, licensing. You actually bought W2K Advanced server for such a small environment? Pardon my skeptisicm, but I doubt it. If this is a business environment and you are using an unlicesed copy of W2K, go out and purchase a copy of W2K Server---you don't need Advanced unless you need more than 4 processors in the server or support for clustering!

It would appear that this is a home network that you are using to learn Windows 2000 networking on.

If that is the case, in answer to your questions:

DNS -- install, configure, and test before installing Active Directory (give server static IP address. If your linksys router is an internet router, then be sure to add your ISP's DNS server addresses (or two reliable internetDNS servers) to the forwarding list on the DNS server.

DHCP -- disable on router, configure on server (after installing Active Directory, don't forget to authorize the DHCP server). Set options for default gateway (router), local DNS server and ISP DNS servers (in that order) and such to be pushed out to the clients.

As for web server and ftp you could run them on the same server, BUT if you plan on accessing these services from outside (via the internet) you should put them on a separateserver on an isolated network segment behind a firewall.

Number 4 has my Vote. Nice answer.

If you need to monitor internet traffic. Use the server as a proxy.

Good Luck Lee

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