DNS, ADS, WINS, ect? do I need it?

I want to host my own website using W2K3 Server. I already bought a domain name (www.mydomain.com) and it's currently being used for my website that is being hosted by a web hosting service that I pay monthly. Eventually, I want this domain name to be "translated" to my IP address so that people can access my website by using that name and not my IP.

I have IIS 6 up and running already. But I have no clue what else I need to do concerning the DNS, ADS, WINS and other features. Which do I need to set up in order to get things working?

You'll need to either set up your own DNS servers, or pay a third party like easydns to do it for you.

easydns is a good service - it will save you having to mess around with the Microsoft DNS server, and it makes managing DNS a lot easier for those who don't know much about it.

Once you've signed up with them, just change the name servers for that domain to easydns's name servers, create an A record for mydomain.com pointing to your IP address through their web based control panel, and you're done!

Is it possible to do this with out static. I have read that there are program availaible to mintor your non_static
?

All you really need is a webserver running. You don't need to worry about DNS, WINS, or ADS if you just want to host a site. Like alexgreg said, you just need to let the upper-level DNS servers know what IP address your site is hosted at.

ok..how do I let the upper level DNS servers know my IP? I will pay for the static if I need to

The "upper level DNS servers" don't care about your IP. You need to publish this information yourself (via your own DNS servers) or via a third party (like easydns). Caches around the internet will then ask either your DNS servers or your third party's DNS servers for information about your domain, and store it for a period of time (known as the ttl, or time-to-live) to save asking your server all the time.

Ok, I have done more reading about all this stuff. Here are more concerns I have:

Damonbrinkley, you mentioned that I dont need to set up a DNS server. If so, then what "DNS" IP do I give my domain name registrar (since this is what their web-based control panel forms ask for). I can't just fill in the IP address of my computer (actually, my router) as a DNS IP even though it's not configured as a DNS server, can I?

Another concern has to do with hosting multiple websites on a single server. According to http://www.iisanswers.com/Top10FAQ/t10-hostheaders.htm, there are 3 options for doing this.

1) Use a different IP for each site.
2) Use same IP with different port number for each site
3) Use same IP and same port number via host headers

I'm not interested in option # 2.
Option #1 sounds great, but I'm not sure how I can do this. Is it possible for my computer to have more than one IP address? ( I did read somewhere that this is possible, but again, im not sure).
I will probably end up choosing option #3, since I assume that's what most ppl are doing. But then the downside of it is not being able to use SSL. I'm sure a lot of you do use SSL as well as have multiple websites. How are you getting around this limitation?

For that name server, give them the IP address of your router. Then configure your router to forward port 53 UDP and TCP traffic to your DNS server.

You can, but DNS queries to it will fail until you set up a DNS server on that IP address.


It's not - it's a waste of IP addresses. Name based virtual hosting (option 3) is a much better solution.

Well, they care what DNS server is the master of your domain and if you run your DNS server then you have to let the top-level DNS server's know the IP of your DNS server (this is usually done through whoever you registered your domain with). If you go with a third-party then just put their DNS server in there. Then all you have to do is use the third-party's web based interface to create your entries for your web server.