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There are lots of excellent articles relating to the setup of FTP, DNS, Windows Server 2016, domain names and routers. What I am looking for is a procedure to link them all together for my home network.

I have:

  • A router with an IP address from an ISP which is as good as being static and provides through DHCP addresses within the 192.168.1.x range for all attached devices.
  • A Windows 2016 server that always receives address 192.168.1.9 from the DHCP server.
  • A domain name with DNS hosting from a domain name provider.

On the router I have port forwarded ports 21 & 80. On the server, I have enabled IIS and FTP roles and can access the default web page with ISP supplied address of w.x.y.z:80 and the ftp with w.x.y.z:21.

At the domain name provider's website, I have linked the domain name to the address w.x.y.z. Entering MyDomainName into my browser, I get the default webpage.

What I would like to do is setup a DNS server role on the Windows 2016 server so from the browser I can enter “www.MyDomaninName” and “ftp.MyDomainName” and return the web and FTP pages respectively.

Now here’s the bits I'm having trouble with:

  • When I setup the DNS server, will the current setup at domain name provider automatically find it?

  • Will I need to cancel the DNS hosting from the domain name provider?

  • Setting up a DNS server will require two name servers. Do I use the two currently being used by the domain name provider? If not what what do I use?

  • The ftp and web services run on ports 21 & 80 respectively from the
    same server. Can the DNS server handle the different ports or will I have to set up virtual machines using different IP addresses?

I am looking for an answer explaining what to do and what to expect, not how to do it – I can get that elsewhere.

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What you're proposing is to host your domain's authoritative Domain Name Server (DNS Server).

When I setup the DNS server, will the current setup at domain name provider automatically find it?

No. To make your DNS server visible to the Internet you need to provide its static IP address to your domain registrar. They will list it as the authoritative Name Server for your domain.

The static IP address is not optional. Further, your server must remain accessible 24x7x365 in order to resolve name queries for your domain, otherwise names and the services they support in your domain will not be accessible.

Will I need to cancel the DNS hosting from the domain name provider?

Yes. While it's required to have multiple name servers for a domain, they must be configured to stay in sync with each other, always returning matching answers to the queries they receive. Your ISP most likely won't agree to configuring their DNS servers like this so you'll need to stop using theirs entirely.

Setting up a DNS server will require two name servers. Do I use the two currently being used by the domain name provider? If not what what do I use?

You must have two unique name servers for your domain. According to IANA's Technical requirements for authoritative name servers:

There must be at least two NS records listed in a delegation, and the hosts must not resolve to the same IP address.

This is the point at where I suggest you not host your own NS servers. However, if you still wish to, you'll need to set up a second DNS server at another location so that it has its own IP address.

The ftp and web services run on ports 21 & 80 respectively from the same server. Can the DNS server handle the different ports or will I have to set up virtual machines using different IP addresses?

DNS knows nothing about ports, only host names. You are correct that to accomplish this purely with DNS you would need to use separate public (!) IP addresses.

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  • It looks like I cannot do what I was trying to - it is simply too much for a single server on a home network. I can still qualify my domain name with protocol//domain:port and that is what I now will do. Excellent answer - exactly the explanation I was looking for.
    – damichab
    Dec 12, 2018 at 22:16
  • Glad to help. I host every service we use on our own servers, except public DNS, so I agree with your assessment. Dec 12, 2018 at 22:21

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