You already have a DNS server
Your Windows Server 2012 machine already has the DNS role added if it's a domain controller. You just need to do a few things to get this set up:
- Configure forwarding
- Add a CNAME record for your website
- Point other machines to use this server for DNS
I don't have a Windows 2012 box ready, otherwise I'd screenshot the heck out of this. You might be able to find this stuff by fumbling around and Google'ing though. I'll give you the basics of what you're looking for.
Keep in mind this is all terribly, terribly simplified:
Configuring forwarding:
When your DNS server can't find an address it needs somewhere else to look. I like to add 8.8.8.8 as a forwarder (Google's DNS server). This way, when your client computers ask for Superuser.com, which your server doesn't have a record for, the request will be forwarded to 8.8.8.8.
Technet page on how to configure forwarding
Add a CNAME record
You'll need an address for your webpage. Adding a CNAME record to the forward lookup zone of your domain will give you a subdomain-style address. So if you've got usta.com
for your domain and you add a CNAME record foobar
, you'll get foobar.usta.com
. This is a pretty common way to handle intranet pages.
You could add another forward lookup zone and then a www
CNAME record to get whatever domain name you want, but then we're creating another forward lookup zone and risking collisions with domains you don't own. Let's just follow the KISS principle.
Technet page on CNAME records
Use the DNS server!
Now we need to point our clients towards the DNS server. It's probably best to do this using DHCP. Get on your router's configuration page, find the DHCP settings, and replace the DNS server with the IP address of your Windows Server 2012. Now either wait for all the clients to renew or force them to renew.
You could also configure everything statically (ew) or configure only DNS statically.
Use the Googles!
To be honest, this answer isn't going to get you far. I am hoping though that it will help you learn where to look.
I'll give that give that a try and see what happens. – Usta – 2013-01-11T03:20:19.597