Question about Active Directory, DNS, and self hosted site

[SirEvan]

I'm trying to learn about network admin by setting up AD, DNS, DHCP and Exchange in a virtual environment using copies I got from my MSDNAA account. I also host my own website using another VM, and would like to combine that with this server to free up resources and consolidate functions (since exchange uses IIS already, might as well move my site there too)

During DCPromo.exe, it asks for a FQDN. Acording to this link, they recommend using a "domain.local" setup so that it is not resolvable across the internet (not a proper FQDN). This is fine, but my question is later, when I deploy Exchange, and move my site into IIS, will Outlook Web App still work by referencing "www.domain.com/owa/"? This of course is assuming that I point incoming :80 traffic to the exchange server. I have already messed with DHCP and DNS, and have those setup, I'm only confused about what to enter into AD as the FQDN during setup....domain.com or domain.local. I had a problem with .com before where it wouldn't resolve to my .com site correctly

Thanks

[Dashel]

Never use your external domain name as your AD Domain, just make something up. domain.blah

[SirEvan]

ok. So for the first step, where it asks "Name the Forest Root Domain", and gives the example "corp.contoso.com", just use domain.whatever?

[Dashel]

Yes (though this should probably be moved to the Server Support area)

[sc302 Veteran]

you can setup exchange to answer for any domain other than domain.local....hell if you could change the mx record for google you could get your exchange server to answer for google with whatever default domain you have setup in AD. AD has absolutely nothing to do with outside and exchange or whatever other services that you can think of do not rely on AD for external name resolution.

how bout domain.ismybitch

that would be perfectly fine too

domain.isawhore

or

domain.mylan

or

domain.lan

or

domain.f.u.buddy

or

domain.whatever

domain.local is pretty standard though.

[SirEvan]

you can setup exchange to answer for any domain other than domain.local....hell if you could change the mx record for google you could get your exchange server to answer for google with whatever default domain you have setup in AD. AD has absolutely nothing to do with outside and exchange or whatever other services that you can think of do not rely on AD for external name resolution.

how bout domain.ismybitch

that would be perfectly fine too

domain.isawhore

or

domain.mylan

or

domain.lan

or

domain.f.u.buddy

or

domain.whatever

domain.local is pretty standard though.

awesome! thanks I finally got it figured out. some of its confusing but i was able to figure it out

[sc302 Veteran]

Good job. It isn't hard. What was confusing? Do you need anything explained?