I will resume my postings once I have the rest of my equipment back, sans server. I was planning on writing a full report back in May on what I had accomplished since my last post, but the aforementioned situation has rendered that a moot exercise as I was dealing with personal issues and in the intervening time the server was removed, so I have no materials to refer to in filling everyone in.
That said, one thing I can talk about is that I did setup a second Windows Server as a secondary DNS, replicating from the main Windows Server. I did it without elevating it to a DC role, so it was able to live on the XE3 I previously mentioned using as little of resources as possible. I did this because I was running into issues using Bind9 from the cloud server, and I couldn’t use the pFsense DNS without manually entering in Windows Server DNS records. This covered my need for DNS to be on the router side of the network, and allowed me to reboot the main server whenever I wanted to without upsetting the rest of the house. The key thing here is that it would replicate all of the MSDCS records (and any additional records made by the primary DC) without my needing to manually create them. I then also was able to get pFsense to send DHCP lease information to the primary DNS Server, (Windows Server DNS Role on main DC) and that worked out pretty nicely. That said, it wouldn’t send the data “unsecured” (I had to change it on the server to be unsecured) so it also added a TXT record with each HOST record, so I ended up making a short PowerShell script to cleanse the DNS server of the TXT records whenever I needed to run it.
That said, the next thing I intend to tackle, barring any additional nonsense, is to stand up a FreePBX/Asterisk server for testing as a client is intending to drop their existing ISP (DSL based connection) for a fiber connection and the company is needing a phone solution. I also intend to call a local company and see if they would be willing to install their service for such a small client. A different client uses them, so it’s an option. I’m leaning towards that as I don’t have the ability to stop my day job to resolve a systems issue, especially one as critical as phones.
All of this is being written on an IBM Model M keyboard, born in May of 1987. This keyboard will become my primary keyboard at home, because I love a good tactile feel when typing.
Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon, and I’m doing as well as anyone can considering the situation.