server 2003 / dns service with no AD

Question

I've set up a small Win2003 box for basically managing a private NAS / SVN etc. I'm trying to use the windows DNS service in most simplest way. I've started by creating a zone, but clients can only use the names by writing the full zone name ie. "machine.zone". I don't care for that, also I don't want each client to configure his DNS suffix. I just want a simple name resolution. I thought the root zone will be the answer, but it too requires adding the '.' char as a suffix ("machine."). Is there a way in MS's DNS service or perhaps another program?

Thanks

Answer 1

You could add the dns suffix to DHCP and not require each client to configure their computer. I set option 15 DNS Domain name to my domain.local.

Answer 2

Probably best to use dnsmasq on another computer (or even on a Linux install in a VM running on the W2k3 server). Easy to configure for small private lan like what you have, and has the ability to use hosts files and other simple methods of getting what you probably want in the end.