How to setup Mac OSX server 10.5.6 from scratch

[shadyMedia]

So here is what I would like to do

1st Host my own Web Site I already Own the domain
2nd Host a iChat server so video chat and just helpful chat session's (It needs to be accessible from the WAN and LAN side
3rd I would like to run a Radios server for my Airport Extreme Network (Not a huge deal but I would like to try it)
4th Software update server
5th Time machine backup's but just of the user's files Not system files/folder's
6th VPN I would like to add a bit of security to the system and I want to use VPN for mail and File sharing and ichat (not sure if that's all possible but I would like to try)
7th File sharing via AFP and SMB and Maybe FTP
8Th Netboot would be kinda nice but the 3 of the system's a pre giga bit so might be a bit slow but I would like to try it

When I setup the server for the primary dns I set it to server.MYFQDN.com
and the computer's name of course is server

So I have already forwarded my website to my Modem's static IP I did this via Godaddy's domain manager

When I do a trace route it appears to be going to my IP address and I can get the Mac OS X Place holder website to show up

Now the odd thing is that in server admin right from the start it said it could not find the Server.MYFQDN.com but it can fin server.local

So I'm sorta stuck do I need to run a DNS server for all this to run or no

How do I setup the VPN to allow mail and File sharing


I am also using directory Server for all the user account's

Any help would be great I'm not a total newbie just more confused


Thanks again!

 

[Makosuke]

It's not clear (to me, at least) from your description how your network is laid out. Are you trying to pass all external traffic through the server, with the internal network's router running off the 2nd ethernet port on it? Or do you have a standard router with a WAN and set of LAN ports, and the server hooked to one of the LAN ports?

Assuming it's the latter, then no, you probably don't want the server acting as a DNS server; it's easier to just let the router (switch, technically, but everything these days is) handle that. It'll also do firewall and routing duties, which is again easier than having the server handle that.

What you'll (I think) want to do is tell your router to give the server a specific IP address, so it gets the same one every time, and then tell the router to route the appropriate external ports to the server's internal IP address.

If you do this, when somebody hits the domain name, which is connected to your modem's static IP address, it'll ask for port 80 (I think--default HTTP); the router will then in turn forward all that traffic to the server's internal IP address, and the server will respond with the appropriate HTTP headers and data. Bingo, externally-served web address.

Do the same for the ports of whatever other external services you want the server to handle, and they'll work as well. I do exactly this with a stock non-server install of OSX at home. For internal connections, you could use the domain name, but I'm not sure if that's going to end up trying to route traffic through the external network or not; I've never tried that. If, however, you use servername.local (or the internal static IP address of the server), you'll have no trouble accessing it directly at full speed.

And again, so long as the server is configured with a static IP address, most things internally (for example, NetBoot) should work fine. An alternative to (or addition to) giving it a reserved IP address on the router's DHCP server is to reserve an address and then hardwire it in the server's configuration. That's what we do with our XServe at work; seems to run smoothly, so long as the router isn't trying to give that IP address out to something else, and it's on the appropriate subnet.

That's not a full answer to your questions, but hopefully it's enough to get you started.