Hi, I have small network of machines that I use for regular usage and software development work. The server machine has 2 network cards. One network card connects to an internet cable router and use the 192.168.0.1 (255.255.255.0) subnet.The other network card(192.168.10.1 - 255.255.255.0 subnet) connects to a network switch/hub and acts as the backbone of my LAN. All the machine in my network have 2 network cards - one for the internet subnet and the other for the LAN subnet. This way when my Server isn't running (which is most of the time as I only use it when I need to test something that requires a server/client sort of a scenario or need to access by backups and repository), the workstations don't loose internet connectivity. So in essence I have two independent networks working side by side. I have been using Windows 2003 Standard server for few years now and all has worked just fine. My workstations connected to theservices and resources on the LAN via the 192.168.10.x subnet (LAN network) and they connected to the internetvia the192.168.0.x subnet (when when my server was running, all internet traffic seemed to flow through the server over the LAN subnet, but the internet still worked). I just upgraded the server to Windows 2008 Standard server edition. I installed AD Servers, DNS and DHCP roles on the server. But now I can't seem to keep the Internetsubnet networkseparate from the LANsubnet network. The server keeps hijacking both NICs and forms a Domain network. I cannot access internet on the network anymore. When I log into any of my workstations, they connect to the domain over the 192.168.0.x subnet even though the DHCP and DNS server only have the 198.168.10.x subnet configured. Can someone provide any helpful information on how I can keep my network working the same way it worked when I was using Windows Server 2003 where Internet network was independent of the LAN network? So to summarize, all my machines have 2 NICs, I have an Internet router/sub and a separate network switch/hub in my setup. I would like the LAN traffic to remain independent from the Internet traffic. Thanks.

I have a quesiton: How are you handing out IP addresses on the Internet Subnet? Are they statically assigned?

So how are the workstation network settings configured? You might also check the bindings of your DHCP server to ensure it is not handing out 192.168.10.0/24 addresses to the machines on your "Internet network".

First of all, thanks for such a prompt reply to my post. Yes, both of the NICs on the server have static IPs assigned to them. I have been playing around a bit more since I posted the message. I have changed the preferred NIC from the advanced settings dialog so that the Internet NIC is the first one. Now I am able to connect to the internet on the server. Also, both NICs on the workstations are also getting assigned the correct the IP addresses by the DHCP server on the Internet Router and the Windows 2008 server. So that part is working as expected too. However, I cannot access internet on the workstations unless I disable the local LAN NIC. Note that I run a DNS service on the Windows 2008 server. When the LAN network card is enabled on the workstation, I can only load web pages which I have already accessed on the server. So it seems like the server DNS is only keepning a local cache of resolved web addresses but is not able to resolve additional requests from the workstation. Do I need to setup some kind of DNS resolution forwarding on the server so that if it cannot resolve any server names, it can let some other DNS do it (the one I configured on my Internet NIC)? Also, on my workstation, I have setup the Internet network card as the preferred NIC, then why is it still using my local DNS service for name resolution? BTW, I wish I could attach snapshots of my configuration. But there does not seem to be any way to do that. Thanks. -Bal

There are a number of ways to make that happen... You should have to have some sort of DNS forwarding on the server. Another method, that may be of use is to include a secondary DNS server - the secondary server would be something on the outside world (perhaps your ISP assigns you a DNS server). You could push that server out through the DHCP scope... If you do both the forwarding and the secondary DNS server you should have all sorts of ways to get out to the internet while maintaining name resolution on your internal networks. As for your question: "Also, on my workstation, I have setup the Internet network card as the preferred NIC, then why is it still using my local DNS service for name resolution?" In the DNS tab of the "Advanced" network config on the desktops, are you appending any DNS suffixes? What happens if you go to a command line on one of these stations and nslookup www.google.com?

I tried your suggestion to pass along external DNS server IP address through DHCP. That worked for about 5 minutes after I reset the LAN NIC. After that I tried to access the network shares on the server and it complained that it could not find any domain controlers. I re-logged back into the workstation and now it cannot access Internet again and nor can it access the server. Weird! BTW, when I restarted my server this morning, I was not able to access the Internet again. Last night the internet was working just fine before I shut it down. This morning I did not check the internet access before I updated the DHCP scope DNS configuration that you suggested. I don't think this configuration chage would break it. Would it? Is there any step by step guide on how to setup network like this? May be I should start from scratch. Any suggestions what I should do. Weird that this exact setup was working just fine with Windows Server 2003. May be this new network sharing console is reconfiguring the NICs to make it easier to setup networks, but it is screwing it up in my case. Is there any easy way I can retrieve the current server and client configuration information and post it along with message? Thanks.

I think that the issue now is to get internal and external resource's name properly resolved. I pretty agree with Aaron that a Forwarders on the DNS server will work. 1. Please add a Forwarders entry to external DNS server for Internet name resolving on the internal DNS server. Using forwarders http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/1cd13da9-ed0a-4814-b0bb-e46e8ac1e3211033.mspx?mfr=true This link is about the DNS forwarders in Windows Server 2003. You can refer to it for Forwarders in Windows Server 2008. 2. Push the internal DNS server out in DHCP server for workstations. 'This way when my Server isn't running (which is most of the time as I only use it when I need to test something that requires a server/client sort of a scenario or need to access by backups and repository), the workstations don't loose internet connectivity.' An external DNS server address(ISP DNS server) can be pushed to workstations as the secondary DNS server. When the server is offline, the name resolving of Internet can still work for workstations to connect external DNS server. But a resolving delay will be experienced due to the timeout of attempt to connect the internal DNS server. 3. On the server please set both network adaptors to use the DNS server's internal address (192.168.0.#) as their Preferred DNS server.

I am already doing all this. The name resolution delay is horendous. Most of the times IE just times out. I am surprised that Windows 2008 is giving me so much grief. I was able to get the Windows 2003 server up and running on my own within a day about year and half ago. It resolved local names as well as external names immediately. Never experienced any delays, specially on the server itself.

Hi, There are two things that will fix you problems. The first is to hook up your 2003 server box and use the migration tool from microsoft or one of the other companies. The second is much more trouble. On your server remove all network files (ie DNS, DHCP). When your server will not connect to any thing, then unplug both net cables. Setup one NIC card, let this one be for the Internet, then setup DNS and DHCP for this card. Now when you have internet then go into DNS and predefine your second NIC card, and isolate it from the inter net sub net. now do the same in DHCP. In the DHCP you need to scopes, one for the internet and one for intranet, You are going to need to make resorvations in both scopes for all your NIC cards on all you computers. If you do not then ICS is going to think that all the NICs are different computers and try to put all of them on the internet. I am sure that if you do this you will not have any further problems. Good Luck, Jed