Im the new IT guy, help me learn server 2003

November 16, 2007 9:43 AM

2 different business, same building, lets call them business 1 and business 2 1 Internet connection 2 servers, server 2003 small business and server 2003 rc2 Server 1 has dual core & 4gigs ram, server 2 is an old p4 with 512 megs ram and 80g drive 2 domains www.domain1.com & www.domain2.com

Business 1 is using Server 2003 small business & is hosting domain1.com's website, and is setup with exchange and active directory and is working fine, for the current users of that business. I can send and receive email from lets say [e-mail]


Business 2 is currently just accessing a network share on the other server, server 2003 rc2 and is not setup with exchange or active directory. There are 7 users currently at Business 2 that need to be setup with email at domain2.com

Is this possible and if so how would I go about doing this?

posted by tradeer33 to computers & internet (5 comments total)

So you need to set up seven email accounts @domain2.com on server #2? Do they have email now?
posted by cdmwebs at 10:27 AM on November 16, 2007

Nope, no email setup except for the users @domain1
posted by tradeer33 at 10:57 AM on November 16, 2007

you will have to purchase access licenses for exchange and setup and install active directory on server 2 for business 2. (if they do not want the two to mix, see below if they do).

Since you are sharing the internet connection you will have to either split off another public IP address for the second mailserver to use (so people on the internet can talk to it to deliver the messages) and so people can access it from out of the office. Either another internet connection will be needed or another IP address and a decent router that can handle one to one network address translation. If you can get a second IP setup for business 2, I would also look at kerio.com for their mailserver, it is $500 for 10 users with one year of antivirus updates, and is an exchange compatible replacement. (you can use outlook and meeting schedules, etc.).

If you don't want to mess with setting up a second IP address, depending on the relationship and licenses you have on business 1's server, you could just have it setup domain (domain2.com) and accounts for users in business 2. There are other fancy ways with small business server to do that with routing and such, but now you are mixing two businesses assests, and I don't know if that is your goal.

Or you can just have them host email through someone like gmail, which provides online calendaring and scheduling also, and they will host your domain2.com address on it. More info here.
posted by mrzarquon at 11:01 AM on November 16, 2007

Thanks, i'll talk to the owner and see what he wants to do.
posted by tradeer33 at 11:13 AM on November 16, 2007

Yep, mrzarquon pretty much has it. You'll have to jump through the M$ hoops for setting up Exchange. Once that's done it looks like you can use both domains at the same IP, you'll just have to update the MX records for business2.com which would actually point to business1.com and business2.com. I guess that could be a little fishy, though...

From http://www.experts-exchange.com/Software/Server_Software/Email_Servers/Exchange/Q_22875434.html

What I usually suggest is that you simple change the MX records of the new domains to match the existing MX records.

For example, if you existing domain is domain1.com and your MX record is mail.domain1.com with a cost of 10, then for the second domain, domain2.net you would set the MX records to be mail.domain1.com with a cost of 10.

The MX record does NOT have to be in the same domain that it is serving, it just needs to resolve. It also cannot be a CNAME, it needs to be a host, so using the same host name for all domains is fine.

Of course, I could be way off here, too. Never had to do this myself. Google Apps for Domains is looking better all the time!
posted by cdmwebs at 11:13 AM on November 16, 2007