DNS FQDN Mavericks 1.9.0 and Server 3.0.1

Question

Hello everyone.
I’m tstill on my Maverick test server and I can’t get my DNS right. Please help.
Mavericks 10.9.0 on Server 3.0.1 on 1 MBPro 2011
Mavericks 10.9.0 Client on 2 MacBook Air 2011
Lets say I registered example.com with easydns registrar.
My registrar points to my dynamic IP which only changes only every 8 to 12 months.
Everything look pointed right from my registrar as I hosted test servers many times before.
Coming into the house, I have a 2Wire 2701HG-S Gateway DSL 1.5 Mb/s Modem that does DHCP, NAT and port forwarding * But it does not do any DNS or provide FQDN forward or reverse.
All it does is allocate IPs and slips the ISP search domain and it’s own address for DNS.
I tried with a Linksys WRV201 which only supports DynDNS or TZO
So, for the moment,  I guess. I’m cornered.
1- Do I read correctly that as long as I do not have another machine (Linux, Window, Older Mac server or special router) on my Intranet that does DNS of Mavericks’s FQDN forward and reverse, It is useless for me to even install Server 3.0.1 on Mavericks?
2- Once Mavericks is all installed and self pointing and clients configured to look it up, Can I get rid of the other server that would be just there to FQDN Mavericks server?
3- Can I just take one of my MacBook Air clients, give it a static IP, activate bing and it acts like a DNS server the time that I Get Mavericks server up?
Francois.

Answer 1

estrois.me.com wrote:
My registrar points to my dynamic IP which only changes only every 8 to 12 months.
Relevant to your gateway device (whatever's at the edge and performing NAT for you), but largely irrelevent to your server and the rest of your local network.
estrois.me.com wrote:
Coming into the house, I have a 2Wire 2701HG-S Gateway DSL 1.5 Mb/s Modem that does DHCP, NAT and port forwarding * But it does not do any DNS or provide FQDN forward or reverse.
All it does is allocate IPs and slips the ISP search domain and it’s own address for DNS.
What's happening with dynamic DNS and the rest is all outside your network perimeter, and largely irrelevent to anything other than remotely accessing your network.
estrois.me.com wrote:
1- Do I read correctly that as long as I do not have another machine (Linux, Window, Older Mac server or special router) on my Intranet that does DNS of Mavericks’s FQDN forward and reverse, It is useless for me to even install Server 3.0.1 on Mavericks?
Your local DNS is the DNS service on your network, and Mavericks Server (and most other servers these days) expects functional local DNS, and most servers (including Mavericks Server) can be configured to provide local DNS, as can some mid-grade firewalls. 
No ISP and no dynamic DNS provider can get you local IP address to domain (host) name translations.
Name to address is what everybody's familiar with, but address to name is the basis for SMTP mail spam checks (on the open internet) as well as certificate security and related processing; of user and host authentication.
estrois.me.com wrote:
2- Once Mavericks is all installed and self pointing and clients configured to look it up, Can I get rid of the other server that would be just there to FQDN Mavericks server?
Your local network has a local address space, and your Mavericks Server can and usually should have its own domain name in a domain you've registered, or a subdomain of a domain that you've registered, and not in a domain that's registered by your dynamic DNS provider.  It's possible to use a bogus domain, but thousands of new top-level domains are coming online.   (OS X will not react well to finding its IP addresses differ from the public translation, and you probably don't want to have to mirror all of the dynamic DNS provider DNS locally.)
estrois.me.com wrote:
3- Can I just take one of my MacBook Air clients, give it a static IP, activate bing and it acts like a DNS server the time that I Get Mavericks server up?
Mavericks Server will install and boot with local DNS running, if you don't (incorrectly) tell it to use off-LAN DNS, such as that at a dynamic provider or at your ISP.  (Neither of which provide translations for a NAT'd network, hence mismatched names or changing names or other oddities, hence server confusion.)  You'll get a one-host zone with whatever domain you've chosen, with the local IP address as the translation.
First step after the Mavericks Install (and preferably after registering a domain for your internal use) is configuring DNS on Mavericks Server for your new server and your new domain, setting up static addresses and names for network printers and the internal IP address of your gateway and other such, and assigning the Mavericks Server DNS server IP address to your DHCP server as the DNS server address to vend to clients.
Here's a write-up on the confusion that can arise around dynamic DNS.  Dynamic DNS is good for remote access into your network when you've only got a dynamic IP address but — whether due to other DNS-related issues or ISP port blocks and blacklists that are common with the dynamic IP tier of service, you may eventually graduate to using static IP.  Dynamic IP is good for remote connections into your network, but not so good when you're connecting out for SMTP mail or other services.
FWIW, while you're setting up the network, get out of 192.168.0.0/24 and 192.168.1.0/24, as — if you ever decide you want to VPN into your network — the VPN server will have issues.  These subnets are used all over the 'net, and VPNs are based on IP routing, and IP routing doesn't work well when the same subnet is on both ends of the connection.  There are other subnets in 192.168.0.0/16, and there are two other available private address blocks to use.  Changing the IP subnet block is feasible at any time, but the more entrenched the references to the subnet become within your environment, the more effort is required to change it.  Better to get out of the way of any potential VPN usage earlier, rather than later.