IIS Seems to Forward Domain/IP to Domain Controller

Question

We have a server (Server 1) with Win 2008 that is accessible by RDP and also is set as the primary DNS IP for a domain (example.com). This server is on the same network as an SBS 2008 server (Server 2) which is the domain controller and internal Dns server. Web requests going to example.com with IP of Server 1 are being passed to Server 2 and served up by IIS from Server 2. What causes this to happen? Is there a safe way to have Server 1 IIS handle the web requests which was our expected outcome?

Example: DNS entry on ISP: example.com = 111.111.111.111 Server 1 = 111.111.111.111 Server 2 = 111.111.111.112

Web user goes to example.com in browser, and the page is actually returned from 111.111.111.112?

Answer 1

Your SBS server is a domain controller. In an Active Directory environment, all DCs will automatically register an A record in DNS for the domain name (example.com in your case) with their own IP address.

This has been discussed several times before on SF:

• http://serverfault.com/questions/38208/sharing-domain-name-between-domain-controller-and-webserver
• http://serverfault.com/questions/31686/active-directory-is-it-required-that-the-a-record-for-a-domain-point-to-a-doma
• http://serverfault.com/questions/40612/issues-with-using-real-domain-for-active-directory-domain