Hi

My primary goal is to install CRM and integrate with our application
currently in development - to do this I need AD (no experience) and a
DC (little experience) set correctly before I go any further. The DC is
a Win2k Advanced Server box freshly built and dedicate to DNS as the
one and only domain controller and AD for the sub domain with a single
network card (I had read somewhere that I may need 2 cards to provide
an internal / external IP's). My router is the DHCP server that
provides my ADSL connection. My public site is hosted externally and I
have the std hosted site end user permissions - the site is not hosted
with my ADSL vendor. At home I have a small private network used for
development - 3 days ago this was just a work group config. I've
created a sub domain form my registered domain to ensure I'm not
clashing with any one else. This sub domain is purely for development -
the only external access I need from this domain is Internet / email.
The sub domain takes the form of child.parent.com where the parent.com
is my registered domain. The DC was set up according to the CRM
Implementation guide (with some variations now)
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/mscrm/mscrm1/deploy/14_instl.mspx#ENAA.
There are 2 other servers that will host WIn2K advanced server SQL
Server and Win 2003 Std Ed IIS / CRM / Exchange (I'm short on boxes).
The AD seems to work fine, I can log into the domain once the machine
names resolve names correctly. Initially I kept getting the IP of the
machines hosting my public website despite NSLookUp resolving both
way's with the correct internal IP address. After some fiddling I can
get the client to ping and return the correct IP address and then login
to the sub domain. I don't think I'm too far from having this a working
system despite my networking ignorance. Both the Forward and Reverse
lookups are configured to allow dynamic updates (secure updates). All
the entries in the forward / reverse lookups have internal IP addresses
and machine names. Once I have the correct IP's resolving if I reboot
the server all is lost and I'm back to the start with the external
website IP addresses. The TCP/IP properties for the network adapter on
the DC have the preferred DNS server set the DC's IP address. The
forwarders for the DNS service are set to point at my ADSL vendors
primary and secondary DNS servers (I think these should be pointing to
the hosting companies DNS server). Under the sub domain in the folders
_mscds, _sites, _tcp, _udp exist with the internal machine names and
internal IP's.

I need to ensure that internal machine names map to the internal IPs
and persist past a reboot, I'll probably get an email from my hosting
company asking why I've been attempting to login into their servers via
remote desktop - I didn't know I was accessing external machines and we
both share the same imaginative nomenclature - serverX etc. Is there a
way to ensure these internal name do not look any further than the
internal DC? Do I need 2 cards? Is the approach correct for the
requirement? Any help appreciated.

thanks in advance,
JS