Hosting Multiple Websites on Windows 2003 Server w/ IIS6

For some time I've been wanting to host several websites on one Windows 2003 Server running IIS. I've found several tutes and think I have the setup down for creating them in IIS Manager.

Where, I'm lost is routing. Most likely the easiest thing for me would probably be to set up Host-Header routing. But I'm really confused when it comes to name servers and setting up DNS.

Scenario / example:

My primary domain -- mydomain.com -- is registered with Network Solutions.
I have a static IP and a business account with my ISP.
The name servers for my primary domain are:
NS43.WORLDNIC.COM 205.178.190.22
NS44.WORLDNIC.COM 205.178.144.22

Internally I run one webserver which is also my DNS server.
In the DNS server I have a www entry for forward and reverse lookup that resolve to the default website.

Now I also have two other domain names that I own, both registered and currently parked at Godaddy.

What I need to know is what name servers to point them to. I don't think I can point them to the worldnic servers as they wouldn't know where to route it. I'm thinking I should add an NS1 and NS2 forward and reverse entry in my DNS server and then use the following for my domain names at Godaddy

ns1.mydomain.com {my static IP here}
ns2.mydomain.com {my static IP here}

Is this correct? If not, how should I go about it?

I am not sure what godaddy gives you for options for name hosting.
With ipower, what I would do is move all domain names to ipower, which will then let you insert into their DNS server the addresses for each of your domains.

example.
So your physical IIS address is 118.24.28.201
all 3 domains should point to that address all 3 domains are under one cpanel at ipower and their DNS is the auth.

Host header will work, the only thing to watch out for is no www. prior to the domain.

Apache actually works better with vhosts imo.

I did see your post earlier dyfrin, but it really didn't help me much. I can't alter my setup from the way it is.

I don't think that godaddy will give you the privilege. There is no meaning buying a hosting from godaddy as they haven't developed their servers yet. They are good enough for domain selling not as a webhost. Their slow service and poor quality host is really putting them down day by day.

Nobody here is talking about GoDaddy web hosting; only DNS entries for domains hosted there.

To clarify, the extra domains were purchased at Godaddy and are currently parked there (not hosted there). I intend to host them on my own server. I basically need to know how to configure things to point those names to my server so they will resolve correctly.

I very much need to make this happen and could really use some advice.
Thanks

hm, perhaps it has to do with url forwarding. You set up the domain, as you have already done. Then in your domain account, you set the url forwarding to a subdirectory of your server. I'll ask my partner about this and see if he can get a little more detail about the DNS - that goes beyond my scope of expertise (I'm just a designer). I should have an answer for you by tonight.

ATNO,
Do you mean to have the two parked domain names point at the same content tree as the one that is working? (It IS working right? )

If that is the case, you should be able to add as many domain names in your zone file for that DNS server as you like, which will in turn (provided you tell godaddy that the authoritative DNS for those domains is your current domain name service provider.



You include that (zones.mydomain.com) with this in the named.conf;
include "/etc/named.d/zones.include";
and in that you have your included zones;
include "/etc/named.d/zones.mydomain.com";

The rationale for the multiple embeds is expandability.



Or some such... then you simply use the same db.mydomain for your domain name resolution.

Is that what you are looking for?

Well if I understood what you said, I might be able to tell you *lol.

You have to remember I'm a Windows guy.
OK, IIS lets you set up multiple websites. Upon installation of IIS you have a default website which is created in c:\Inetpub\wwwroot

However, using IIS Manager, you can set up as many other websites as you want.
I'm pretty certain I'll set it up using Host Headers as described here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308163 and here http://www.iisanswers.com/Top10FAQ/t10-hostheaders.htm

I can pretty much follow all that and get it to work internally. Where I'm lost is that, this server already runs a website that has been online for close to 10 years. I can't change that. It is a static IP. The domain name for that website was purchased at Network Solutions, and I have the name servers pointed to the my ISP which resolves to my servers static IP address.

What I am having problems with is what name server to point the extra domains I have at Godaddy to? Obviously, I can't point them to my ISP's name servers because they won't know where to route it.

Do I just point them to my static IP?
Or do I create sort of a couple entries on my DNS server (which is the same as my webserver) such as ns1.mydomain.com and ns2.mydomain.com

And then for my two domains names at Godaddy, point them there?
I'm thinking just using the Static IP should work, but I don't know.

There has to be an easy way to do it, because how else do hosts have Windows server with shared domain accounts. It's the how to that I'm having problems with. Not finding much help from search results.

Well, I think we were saying the same thing. The technology you use to host the site is irrelevant in this case.

Was I right in that you want domain2 and domain3 to point at the same content that is already hosted at domain1?

If so, then all you need to do is add domain2 and domain3 to the zone file as I specified above and whomever maintains your DNS resolution. Obviously they will have to add those, and you will need to tell your domain name registrar the authoritative DNS servers for the two domains -- which should be the same as your primary domain.

Well here is where I am at.

I have the "extra" domains set up on my server and I can access them internally using host headers per these instructions. I also used these instructions

mydomain.com is my default website. I've had that name registered with Network Solutions for nearly 10 years. I sorta figured out that I needed to add "A" records for ns1 and ns2 at netsol and point them to my static IP to resolve.

Then on my godaddy parked domains I pointed domain2.com and domain3.com to my ns1.mydomain.com and ns2.mydomain.com My actual server NS name in DNS in my DNS zone is myserver-01 but when I try to add that as a name server I get a message that it's not registered (and I did that entry at netsol too.)

Not working. Then I found out I needed to open port 53 inbound for TCP and UDP on my Cisco firewall to allow DNS inquiries. I'm not all that saavy with Cisco firewall command lines but I think I did it. I entered in the command prompt
access-list inbound permit tcp any host {my IP address here} eq 53
access-list inbound permit udp any host {my IP address here} eq 53

The resulting config is
access-list inbound permit tcp any host {my IP address here} eq domain
access-list inbound permit udp any host {my IP address here} eq domain

(I think "domain" is the equiv of port 53)

Still not working, and I'm stumped.
I can't believe it's this hard to find info to set up a windows server to host multiple domains.

*note. domain names are bogus but representative.

If you purchased the domains from godaddy, then simply log in and find URL Forwarding section for each domain and put in the full address in the 'destination' field.

My example I have set up:

I have 2 domains: 111.com and 222.com
111.com has an A record [pointed to an IP] which is my main web server.

On my server in the root web directory, I have a directory called 222, which is the website for 222.com

I configured URL forwarding for the domain 222.com to point to the destination: http://www.111.com/222

So, when you go to 111.com, youre goign directly to the web root, when you go to 222.com, you are goign to a sub directory. And all this can be set up in IIS under the 'default web site'

I believe this is what you are trying to achieve, and if godaddy does not have URL forwarding, pull your domains from godaddy to another registar such as http://www.mydomain.com - thats who I use, and I know it works. NO dns has to be messed with.

~Matt

Godaddy has URL forwarding. I can check into it, but then another problem comes up. How do you handle mail to your forwarded domains? Also how do you mask the domains so 222.com shows up that way and not as http://www.111.com/222 ?

I'd still like to do it as I planned. What's irritating is webhosts do it all the time, but it's really tough to get the right search terms to find the exact how to.

At the moment, I'm pretty certain I'm set up the way I should be, but not certain if I've got my firewall settings correct to allow the DNS queries to access my internal DNS server. Might have something to do with NAT translation which I'm not all that savvy on.

when you forward your URL, forward it to the subdirectory of the.

Use "stealth URL Forwarding" to mask the original domain it's pointed to. There are two types of forwarding, the first: "masked" or "stealth" forwading, and the second: "standard" URL forwarding. It should be in the options of your godaddy account.