DNS not resolving on the server - resolves fine on the LAN

Question

Hello all - I just had an odd experience and I thought I'd share it, hopefully gathering some comments.
I performed a fresh install of Tiger Server on my PowerMac last night, with the intention of testing the installer's ability to set up services, particularly Open Directory.
I enabled DNS, AFP, and Open Directory in the installer (first boot after install). The server configured itself and when I logged into admin for the first time I went to Server Admin, where I found DNS, AFP, and Open Directory running. This suprised me as Open Directory was always a bear to get Kerberos running correctly, and here I found Kerberos was running even though there were no entries in DNS.
I went about configuring the rest of my services, DHCP, NAT, Firewall, and so on. When I finally open Workgroup Manager to add some OD users, I find I cannot create home folders. I head to Terminal where I find this:
server:/ admin$ host 10.1.1.1
Host 1.1.1.10.in-addr.arpa not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)
server:/ admin$ host server.ishcabittle.private
Host server.ishcabittle.private not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)
The server cannot see itself for some reason. I had set up a nameserver, server.ishcabittle.private residing on the router address of 10.1.1.1 in my local subnet. I made sure that the DNS server 10.1.1.1 was listed on my subnet's ethernet interface, Built-in Ethernet.
host -v 10.1.1.1 returns the same, only listing a Comcast server for some reason. My guess is that setting up DNS during install hard wired the comcast DNS server as the permanent nameserver. I've edited /etc/hosts to include 10.1.1.1 server.ishcabittle.private, I've edited hostconfig to include HOST=server.ishcabittle.private (although I've read that 10.4.6-7 doesn't need this entry, it was the only thing that got Kerberos running on my previous install). Not sure what else to do.
Is there a permanent DNS record established during install? If so, where can I find this config file? None of these contain what I'm looking for:
/private/etc/.hostconfig.swp
/private/etc/hostconfig
/private/etc/hostconfig.personal
/private/etc/hosts
/private/etc/hosts.equiv
/private/etc/hosts.lpd
I'm pretty much going to reinstall anyway, I'll most likey do so without the cable modem plugged in.

Answer 1

Thanks Leif. I managed to get most things working as you'd expect, except that I am uncertain about the setup when it comes to Open Directory. The DNS I setup on my server maps the WAN IP to the server name, so OD ends up on the WAN IP. Is this not a security concern?
I have DHCP working for the LAN side on the secondary ethernet port, which means all of my clients are on a different subnet from the OD. Also, my DNS is setup on the WAN IP and not the LAN IP, so there is no DNS to nicely set names to IPs for the LAN side. I did try setting up another zone for the LAN side, but then I received some sort of mis-match error (can't recall if it was from OD or changeip or what) - something about the machine handling two different IPs each with a unique name.
At one point I had shared folders working (broken now, ugh) and an account under Workgroup Manager showed this under Account Summary:
Location: WAN-IP/LDAPv3/127.0.0.1
Home: afp://LAN-IP/Users/username
Maybe this is nothing unusual, but I am new to this so apologies if this is obvious. I was under the impression DNS, DHCP, and OD should be running only on the LAN side, but I have not been able to do this because OD must run on the primary interface (which connects to the WAN). It just seems a bit odd to me that I would be running a DNS on a WAN IP when all I really need is a DNS for the LAN side ... is this just a limitation caused by the primary interface needing to be the WAN interface and the OD IP?
Would kindly appreciate a clarification on this.
Thank you!
Update: the following post is very similar to my question, but remained unresolved:
http://lists.apple.com/archives/Macos-x-server/2006/Mar/msg01463.html
In my situation, I would like VPN to work as well, which seems to require OD on the primary interface as well - again, which places my LAN clients on a different subnet from the OD...