Snow Leopard Server DNS setup

Where is there a step by step setup for making my Snow Leopard Server with DNS? Essentially, I am looking to setup a mail server but seem to be missing what information I need to gather from the folks that host my domain and how to point traffic to my network.

When I started setting up my first Mac OS X Servers a few years ago I had to completely retrain my brain because the MacOS does not follow the traditional nomenclature of Windows Active Directory and DNS setup. That being said like AD for Windows MacOS relies very very heavily on a healthy and properly running DNS system, both internally and externally. So one great resource I found was about 10+ hours of training on Leopard Server over to Lynda.com. I think you can sign up for a month long membership but it's well worth the investment if your looking for some basics thru advanced setup of Leopard Server. Now SLS is much much easier at the setup and deployment and some of the fundamentals of the setup interface have changed greatly (as an improvement) but the videos are still very applicable.
Basically it comes down to the following steps in order to get your website/e-mail/wiki services working.
1. Purchase your .whatever with a registrar, godaddy, doster, network solutions ect...
2. Make sure you have a fully routable PUBLIC IP address from your ISP that you can assign to the WAN (internet side of your router)
3. Contact your ISP and ask then to create an rDNS entry for your .something to the IP address they assigned you. Usually this will look like xxx.xxx.xxx ---> mail.mydomain.com when you test later on.
4. Modify the DNS records with your registrar to point the MX & A record to your new IP. You will log in create an A record for mail.mydomain.com ---> xxx.xxx.xxx (your public IP on router) and then you will create an MX record for e-mail which will simply be mail.mydomain.com with a value of 10 (there is usually a screen for this).
5. Once all the DNS is setup and working properly (Can take several days for these changes to take affect and be visible by your ISP) then you can begin the configuration of your router. You will need to determine what IP internally you want your Mac to be. Usually 10.0.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 or other and document that. Program your router to port forward ports 25,110, 80, 143 to the IP that you decided your Mac will be at so those services will be publicly available to you to user. Otherwise nobody will ever be able to send you e-mail or visit your site.
6. This is a good time to check your work and settings by visiting www.mxtoolbox.com and you verify your rDNS (setup by ISP) and your DNS (Setup by you) before beginning your setup of OS X SLS. If everything checks out then start the install if not STOP HERE and fix it because it will haunt you in the long run.
7. Start the install of SLS and at some point the system will get you to the screens at which you input your domain information. If all was setup properly up to now SLS will auto-populate the domain and local hostname of your Mac Server. U can change the local hostname if you wish but the domain name information should reflect your rDNS and A record information of mail.mydomain.com and you can hit next and proceed with the rest of the install.
8. Once up and running you will need to make a small adjustment to the alias of your e-mail. For some reason the engineers at Apple left a flaw in (my opinion) that is as such. Whenever you send e-mail it will go as [email protected] instead of what you really want which is [email protected]. So follow this post below and you will be all fixed up in a jiffy.
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10110723#10110723
Hope this helps.

Similar Messages

Nslookup Snow Leopard Server DNS problems

I have a mac mini that I'm trying to turn into a snow leopard server. Attached to the mac mini I have three external hard drives which act as back ups to our mac book pro laptops. I have installed the server software and downloaded all the updates and I can see the drives on the server and I can acess the external drives and backup to them with out a problem. The issue that I have is that when I run nslookup I get an error message which tells me that it can't find my name and that I need to rerun so software commands.
I'm also unable to run either dns or podcast producer which was the main reason for buying the server software. I have a static ip address and believe I have configured everything correctly but I just can't seem to sort out the DNS and problems.
Any thoughts - thanks
Russell

This is the Discussions > Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard > Installation and Setup forum. Your questions involve Mac OS Server, which is a different OS product. Thus, you will get better results posting to the Apple - Support - Discussions - Mac OS X Server forums.

Error configuring services from Snow Leopard Server to Mountain Lion Server

I am trying to upgrade a Snow Leopard Server Mac Mini to Mountain Lion Server.
We have two Mac Mini servers at our office (production and backup) so I migrated the everything from our production server to the backup using the migration assistant when setting up the backup computer.
I now have the backup at home trying to upgrade it to Mountain Lion Server. I have downloaded and installed Mountain Lion as well as the Server App version 2.2. I basically followed the simple directions found in the Apple documentation.
I started the server app and it got to the part where it said "Upgrading services". After running for a few minutes, I get a window that states "An error occurred while configuring your server." It also sayd "The following actions failed or were not attempted:" with a red dot next to "Upgrading services". The other three items: "Authenticating to local directory", "Reading directory configuration" and "Authenticating to local directory services" have gray dots so I'm sure they were not even attempted.
Our Snow Leopard server is setup for SMB file sharing, LDAP services, FTP, Web, DNS, DHCP.
Can someone point me to where I can figure out what exactly is failing? Are there specific log files I need to look into?
Thanks

Have EXACTLY the same issue - also tried reinstalling mountain lion server fresh and still had the same problem...

Snow Leopard Server with Lion Server for APNS

Hello Everyone,
I'm wanting to keep my Snow Leopard Server (Xserve) setup in place its working great, and cant afford to have any down time on the company network. What I would like to do is setup up an additional Mac Mini with Lion server to handel just the APNS. Is this possiable.
I would be running all of the services, mail, OD, addressbook, caladar, on the Snow leopard server but want to use Lion Server to push out and manage some Lion clients, and iPhone with a second server has anyone done this, can this setup work?
Thanks!
Robert

Hi Robert
"Can you provide the basics for setup?"
Apart from making sure DNS is configured correctly - as always - there's not much else you need to know. Server has to be configured as an OD Master. It does work with the default self-signed certificate although Apple do recommend you purchase one from a CA such as Verisign. I mention Verisign because it's trusted by the US Government. Once you've got your push notification certificate from Apple, enable the relevant option in the Server App. From there create the enrolment profile and key in the relevant url in your IOS device. The rest is fairly obvious. If DNS is not properly configured for your network this part probably will fail.
"Can this all be completed in server admin, or the new server.app?"
AFAIK Server Admin is not involved with APNS.
"Did you just bind Lion Server too Snow Leopard Server, connect to another OD, or replica?"
This was on a publicly accessible server that was its own OD Master. Provided things are configured correctly I can't see why it can't work with an environment that's behind NAT.
"What do I setup after this?"
Apart from making sure DNS is configured properly as well as the tip regarding trusted certificates I can't think of anything else? From what I've seen MDM in Lion Server is very good and what's more quick on the devices I tested. I only tested IOS devices and testing was done 'over the air.' You can still use the ICPU assuming you kept a copy of the download?
HTH?
Tony

Problems deleting pdf's generated from files off of Snow Leopard Server

The small design studio I work at has just upgraded from G5's running 10.4 Tiger, working off Tiger Server, to new iMacs running 10.6 Snow Leopard and a Mac Mini Server, on Snow Leopard Server.
Normal working practice is to open files off the server across the network, making changes and saving them back down. Most of the time, a pdf will be generated from the file to send to the client when copy changes have been made, then saving down the pdf file to the iMac to email to the client.
The issue is now that when the pdf has been emailed, attempting to delete it brings up a warning window that 'You do not have sufficient accesses privileges to delete the file' and this then has to be done by selecting secure empty trash.
We are all registered users on the Mac Mini Server and this was not an issue we had when using Tiger.
Could anyone suggest any setting changes that would be required to get around this issue?
As a note, all the work files were originally on a older G4 being used as a sever and were copied to the new Mac Mini Server, that was set up as a new machine and was not done via transfer files.
Thanks
Ben

Hello Ben,
I'm very sorry, but this is not the correct forum in which to post your question! Universal Access is the facility for ensuring that all Mac users can benefit fully from their machines, regardless of disability.
Try Snow Leopard Server—Installation, Setup and Migration instead!
Cheers,
Archie

How to resolve network issue or dns to access web page on snow leopard server?

I have my network setup like as follows:
internet > router 1 > ethernet ports > switch > router 2
I have a mac osx snow leopard server connected to "router 1", but it is so slow when accessing a web page hosted on the server from a browser on a workstation connected to either router 1 or router 2?
Is there a problem with my network setup or maybe because I changed the name to newservername.local?

@Jeff and @Camelot,
I think it is a DNS issue. I completely reset the DNS settings on server and the local name with the steps below, but now cannot access the site hosted on the server at all
I used a modified version of http://www.mkahn.com/2010/09/configuring-dns-on-mac-os-x-10-6-snow-leopard-serve r-for-hosting/ to reset the server set
1. Stop DNS Service in Server Admin
2. Close Server Admin
3. Obtain 10.6 DNS Default files (below)
4. Overwrite the DNS files with DNS Default files:
/etc/dns/loggingOptions.conf.apple
/etc/dns/options.conf.apple
/etc/dns/publicView.conf.apple
/var/named/named.ca/etc/named.conf
/var/named/named.local
/var/named/localhost.zone
5. Restart your server
All machines have 1ms ping responses within the network including this snow leopard server that I am trying to setup. There is another test web server that return pages instantly within this network so I doubt it is a network issue, but a DNS issue.

Unable to access gateway and DNS via VPN (L2TP) with Snow Leopard Server

Summary:
After rebooting my VPN server, i am able to establish a VPN (L2TP) connection from outside my private network. I am able to connect (ping, SSH, …) the gateway only until the first client disconnects. Then i can perfectly access all the other computers of the private network, but i cannot access the private IP address of the gateway.
Additionally, during my first VPN connection, my DNS server, which is on the same server, is not working properly with VPN. I can access it with the public IP address of my gateway. I can access it from inside my private network. A port scan indicates me that the port 53 is open, but a dig returns me a timeout.
Configuration:
Cluster of 19 Xserve3.1 - Snow Leopard Server 10.6.2
Private network 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 -> domain name: cluster
-> 1 controller, which act as a gateway for the cluster private network, with the following services activated:
DHCP, DNS, firewall (allowing all incoming traffic for each groups for test purposes), NAT, VPN, OpenDirectory, web, software update, AFP, NFS and Xgrid controller.
en0: fixed public IP address -> controller.example.com
en1: 192.168.1.254 -> controller.cluster
-> 18 agents with AFP and Xgrid agent activated:
en1: 192.168.1.x -> nodex.cluster with x between 1 and 18
VPN (L2TP) server distributes IP addresses between 192.168.1.201 and 192.168.1.210 (-> vpn1.cluster to vpn10.cluster). Client informations contain the private network DNS server informations (192.168.1.254, search domain: cluster).
_*Detailed problem description:*_
After rebooting the Xserve, my VPN server works fine except for the DNS. My client receives the correct informations:
Configure IPv4: Using PPP
IPv4 address: 192.168.1.201
Subnet Mask:
Router: 192.168.1.254
DNS: 192.168.1.254
Search domain: cluster
From my VPN client, i can ping all the Xserve of my cluster (192.168.1.1 to 18 and 192.168.1.254). If i have a look in Server Admin > Settings > Network, i have three interfaces listed: en0, en1 and ppp0 of family IPv4 with address 192.168.1.254 and DNS name controller.cluster.
The DNS server returns me timeouts when i try to do a dig from my VPN client even if i am able to access it directly from a computer inside or outside my private network.
After i disconnect, i can see in Server Admin that the IP address of my ppp0 interface has switch to my public IP address.
Then i can always establish a VPN (L2TP) connection, but the client receives the following informations:
Configure IPv4: Using PPP
IPv4 address: 192.168.1.202
Subnet Mask:
Router: (Public IP address of my VPN server)
DNS: 192.168.1.254
Search domain: cluster
From my VPN client, i can access all the other computers of my network (192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.18) but when i ping my gateway (192.168.1.254), it returns me timeouts.
I have two "lazy" solutions to this problem: 1) Configure VPN and DNS servers on two differents Xserve, 2) Put the public IP address of my gateway as DNS server address, but none of these solutions are acceptable for me…
Any help is welcome!!!

I would suggest taking a look at:
server admin:vpn:settings:client information:network route definitions.
as I understand your setup it should be something like
192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 private.
at least as a start. I just got done troubleshooting a similar issue but via two subnets:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2292827&tstart=0

Configure DNS on Snow Leopard Server for Web Hosting

Hi Everyone,
I put together an article on my blog about Snow Leopard DNS setup for web hosting. http://www.mkahn.com/?p=279
I'll be revising it over the next few weeks to make it more informative based around feedback. Let me know if you have any questions or trouble setting up DNS on Snow Leopard Server for web hosting.

Thanks for your replies. I realize I'm not making clear the way this network is configured . Also, the only services running on the Snow Leopard server are (at this time):
dhcpd - in the 10.136.31.x range;
dns - same as before;
planned to add are:
Open Directory (for network logins)
Software update;
Web (only on the 10.136.31.x Ethernet);
mySQL (localhost only - for moodle);
NAT is not set up on the Snow Leopard server itself. We have an outside router, a Cisco 2811. This router provides routing for both the public IP range, and the NAT range is configured in this router. The forwarding dns is located in LR and Fayetteville. So what I need is dns on Snow Leopard to forward outside queries to the state DNS servers, and resolve the local NAT IP only for Open Directory and a set of Snow Leopard clients.
Is this going to be possible?

DNS Configured-Best Practice on Snow Leopard Server?

How many of you configure and run DNS on your Snow Leopard server as a best practice, even if that server is not the primary DNS server on the network, and you are not using Open Directory? Is configuring DNS a best practice if your server has a FQDN name? Does it run better?
I had an Apple engineer once tell me (this is back in the Tiger Server days) that the servers just run better when DNS is configured correctly, even if all you are doing is file sharing. Is there some truth to that?
I'd like to hear from you either way, whether you're an advocate for configuring DNS in such an environment, or if you're not.
Thanks.

Ok, local DNS services (unicast DNS) are typically straightforward to set up, very useful to have, and can be necessary for various modern network services, so I'm unsure why this is even particularly an open question. Which leads me to wonder what other factors might be under consideration here; of what I'm missing.
The Bonjour mDNS stuff is certainly very nice, too. But not everything around supports Bonjour, unfortunately.
As for being authoritative, the self-hosted out-of-the-box DNS server is authoritative for its own zone. That's how DNS works for this stuff.
And as for querying other DNS servers from that local DNS server (or, if you decide to reconfigure it and deploy and start using DNS services on your LAN), then that's how DNS servers work.
And yes, the caching of DNS responses both within the DNS clients and within the local DNS server is typical. This also means that there is need no references to ISP or other DNS servers on your LAN for frequent translations; no other caching servers and no other forwarding servers are required.

Creating a versatile DNS and redirection service on Snow Leopard Server

For the few of us who use Snow Leopard Server as a main DNS for our small network, the following is a workflow that I would like to share with the board for creating redirection services to not just sites found on the locally hosted apache but also external sites.
+IF you are adding a second domain name, the reverse domain lookup will not appear and you will need to add a Machine/A record with the fully qualified domain "domainname.com." (don't forget the . at the end) into the new zone and it will point to the "server" Machine/A record ip address.+
*DNS Portion* : (ServerAdmin > DNS > Zones >
Add Zone > Primary > Create a fully Qualified Domain name and dns "server" in the Machine / A Record
Create the (add Record > Alias/ CNAME) subdomain pointing to the server.domainname.com e.g. (library)
*Web / Apache Portion :*
Create a new site (ServerAdmin > Web > Sites > Plus button)
With General > host name exactly as spelled in above subdomain in full (library.domainname.com)
Select Web Folder where the site is hosted
If you are creating a redirection, create a folder on the server, add an index.php (with the script below)
Add Alias with the same subdomain as number 2
_PHP script :_
<?php
$location = "http://example.net";
header("Location: ".$location, "301 Moved Permanently");
?>
// Edit the "http://example.net" to which ever e.g. "http://apple.com"
_Alternatively you can also mask the page with :_
<html>
<head>
<title>Same Title As Your Homepage</title>
<script type="text/javascript">
function changeTitle()
if (top.frames['main'].document.title)
top.document.title=top.frames['main'].document.title;
</script>
</head>
<frameset>
<frame name="main" src="http://actual-url.anotherhost.com/page.html"scrolling="auto" target="main" ONLOAD="changeTitle();">
<noframes>
<body>
Place a suitable message here for people with browsers that can't read frames.
</body>
</noframes>
</frameset>
</html>

Ok, local DNS services (unicast DNS) are typically straightforward to set up, very useful to have, and can be necessary for various modern network services, so I'm unsure why this is even particularly an open question. Which leads me to wonder what other factors might be under consideration here; of what I'm missing.
The Bonjour mDNS stuff is certainly very nice, too. But not everything around supports Bonjour, unfortunately.
As for being authoritative, the self-hosted out-of-the-box DNS server is authoritative for its own zone. That's how DNS works for this stuff.
And as for querying other DNS servers from that local DNS server (or, if you decide to reconfigure it and deploy and start using DNS services on your LAN), then that's how DNS servers work.
And yes, the caching of DNS responses both within the DNS clients and within the local DNS server is typical. This also means that there is need no references to ISP or other DNS servers on your LAN for frequent translations; no other caching servers and no other forwarding servers are required.

Setting up Snow Leopard Server with Address Book, iCal for Small Business

Hello Folks,
I have a small business with 2-3 people and I want to setup Snow Leopard Server on a Mac Mini. I have everything in place, RAID, Backup drive etc.
What I need is a guide on how to setup the server correctly and how to setup Address Book Server, iCal Server, DNS, etc. I was in IT a long while back but have gone back to my creative roots and sworn off IT but I am in a situation where my IT guy's wife is pregnant so he is busy painting the baby's room, etc.
I was looking at Snow Leopard Server for Dummies and a few other books. Do you guys have any suggestions on resources for me to read or research that would give me very straightforward steps in getting this setup. I am at a point where I can re-install from scratch if needed.
For the ease of those that might respond let's assume I know my way around Mac and general networking as a whole.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
Cheers,
Jason

Hi Guys,
First of, I will give you a brief background on me regarding networking as a mac user since 1994. I can setup and network multiple macs without a server in our home and small office. Turning file, print and internet sharing with a regular Mac OS X client version at no problem at all. This would be my first time setting up a Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server.
I'm in the same boat as Jakekub but we do not have a static IP from our DSL provider. We just bought a Mac Mini Server for our small office with 3 iMacs and 1 MacBook. We will just use the server for internal usage and to centralized things out and use some of server's features like Address Book, Mail, iCal etc. I've search the forums and found Orhidy's post here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2148553
I even followed the sample IP Address, Subnet Mask, Router, DNS Server and I think I had it correctly setup initially. And I think I got it all running on the basic setup base on his instructions. So I tried to test my DNS settings via Terminal > hostname then got answer as
servername.companyname.private
And double checking DNS again with a command: sudo changeip - checkhostname and was given an answer of:
Primary address = 192.168.1.192
Current Hostname = servername.companyname.private
DNS Hostname = servername.companyname.private
The names match. There is nothing to change
dirserv:success = "success"
But here's another one that bugs me. I tried to follow from "Mac OS X Snow Leopard for Dummies" the command line:
NSLOOKUP hostname
and got an answer of:
;; Got SERVFAIL reply from 192.168.1.192, trying next server
Server: 192.168.1.1
Address: 192.168.1.1#53
** server can't find hostname: NXDOMAIN
So does it mean that I still haven't configured my server properly?
Thank you all for the help in advance!
dive

Windows 7 (Client) map a network drive VPN Snow Leopard Server

Hi,
I have a Mac Mini Snow Leopard Server and are using a VPN service.
My services on the mac os x sls server are: AFP, DNS, Firewall, Open Directory, SMB and VPN.
I can connect the VPN from Mac clients and Windows 7 clients, but I can only map a network drive/share point on Mac´s.
On Windows 7 I get an error: path or name not found ( I am sure using the correct path, same from Mac client that works).
When I am using my internal network LAN I can map a network drive using Windows 7 and Mac but outside over a VPN not (only Mac works).
The only service, at this moment, that I need is File Sharing outside my network LAN using a VPN.
How can I map a network drive from a Windows 7 client using a VPN, is there any Firewall rules / SMB rules / File Sharing rules that I missed on the server side?
Thank You.

I really don't know what are going wrong with my settings. As you said/write it must be an easy setup.
I'm using a Time Capsule and used the Server app to add VPN to the port forwarding also.
When I am connected thru the VPN I tried to ping the Server IP and got no answer from it, from W7 client!?
My Mac's are just working fine with AFP and SMB share points thru the VPN.
I think I have missed some settings from the SMB or Firewall services for VPN with W7 client's or it is a Windows issue.....

Making Snow Leopard Server services accessible through Time Capsule

Sorry, this will be a fairly long explanation. I think this is the right forum but the question kind of spans several component elements.
During the setup of Snow Leopard Server I let it configure the Time Capsule for services that it is providing, which I want to make available to both the local network and to computers coming in from the Internet. However, there seem to be some conflicts between Time Capsule ports and Snow Leopard ones.
First my set-up: I have Verizon FIOS and have set up my Actiontech Router into bridge mode to the Time Capsule so that the Time Capsule grabs the public IP address. The Snow Leopard Server has a dedicated private IP from the Time Capsule through the DHCP reservation. I have a dynamic DNS setup which consistently points to the public IP address assigned to the Time Capsule. After starting services on Snow Leopard Server, I can see the port mappings created on the Time Capsule by the server allocated to the server's dedicated private IP address. However, the File Sharing (AFP, SMB) entry can't be enabled because the ports used for those services conflict with the ports opened by the Time Capsule to enable backups from client Time Machines (TCP Ports 548, 139). Therefore, any external access to those ports are going to the Time Capsule and not routed to the Snow Leopard Server.
Two questions:
1. Should I map the DNS hostname to the Time Capsule on the Hostnames screen on AirPort utility? While this will enable remote access to the Time Capsule (so that if my client computers are outside coming from the Internet), will this mess up remote access to the Snow Leopard Server?
2. How do I get around the problem of the port conflicts between what Time Machine needs to get to the Time Capsule for backups versus enabling the ports for AFP and SMB on the server?

I actually found an Apple support tip and am posting it here to answer the question:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2963
Bottom line: you can't have both devices doing file sharing unless you set up VPN access.

NEW to Snow Leopard Server - Config Q's

I recieved a free Mac Mini Server running Snow Leopard Server and would like to get some help configuring it. I would like to get FTP and VPN service running. I've already purchased a domain name with 1and1.com, but don't have the slightest idea on how to get the domain name to point to my server. Can anyone give me some pointers on how to do this as well as getting the 2 services running? Also, are there any good books on OS X 10.6 server?
Thanks in advance!

Does your Internet connection have a static IP address? If not you will need to use a service like DynDNS.org and if you want to use it with your own purchased domain name you will need to use the paid for level of service.
I use the free DynDNS service with Snow Leopard VPN with no problems. You would in both cases download and install the Mac client for DynDNS so it can update your domain name record.
Would you be using Open Directory? If so you would need to setup an internal domain name server, it is possible to use the same domain name both internally and externally - this is known as a split horizon DNS setup.
Apple's own Snow Leopard Server documentation can be accessed here http://support.apple.com/manuals/#server 10.6 with regards to third-party books, I cannot comment from personal knowledge as to which is best but a selection can be viewed via http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywo rds=mac+10.6+server

Anybody know a guide to revert Snow Leopard Server from php 5.3.1 to 5.2.x

I need to build a membership database for where I work. I had it working fine on my personal mac, but wanted to host it on a dedicated computer, so last week I went out and bought a Snow Leopard server.
The biggest issue I've come across is that Snow Leopard ships with php 5.3.1 installed and the Drupal / Civicrm system I'm using will only accept php 5.3.0. and apparently php 5.2.x is a much more stable / less buggy build. So I've been trying to figure out how to remove the installed php and downgrade to a previous build.
I should also point out that while I can do fairly limited things in Terminal, I am by no means a pro. I
am looking for something like the entropy build, rather than trying to figure out how to configure the whole thing myself -- if that makes sense.
Message was edited by: Flakesobran

You really have two options here.
Your SonicWall Firewall has a built-in VPN server, so you could configure that, point your remote client to the SonicWall's address and you're set - the remote machine will be given an address in your internal (192.168.2.x) LAN and will be able to communicate with all the other machines on the LAN.
The other option is to configure the VPN server on your Mini, in which case you'll need to configure port forwarding on the SonicWall so that the VPN traffic (the UDP ports listed above) are passed through to the server.
The advantage of running on the Mac is that it's automatically tied into the directory system on your Mac, so any user in your Mac's directory will be able to establish a VPN connection. The downside is that it's a little more complex to setup due to the port forwarding requirements.
In either case, once the VPN connection is established your remote Mac will be able to communicate with any machine on the LAN (the Mini, other clients, printers, etc.). The only thing that won't work will be auto-discovery (e.g. Bonjour), so VPN-based servers won't appear in your Finder's sidebar, for example. To overcome this you'll need to make sure your LAN DNS is working properly or know the IP address of each machine on your LAN.

Snow Leopard Server DNS setup

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