Sharing a Win2K3 dial-up connection with LAN workstations

[McGuireV10]

A friend of mine has his business set up in the following fashion:

Windows Server 2003 (Standard Edition)
-- Static IP 192.168.1.221
-- Domain server (AD)
-- DNS server on 192.168.1.222

Workstations (all Windows XP SP1)
-- Static IP (192.168.1.20 through .29)
-- Static Gateway = server (192.168.1.221)
-- Static DNS = server DNS (192.168.1.222)
-- No local accounts; domain logins only

They are connected through a basic 8-port switch, nothing special there. DHCP is disabled completely on this network. Connectivity within the LAN works perfectly.

He asked me to configure the server to permit his workstations to use a regular modem-based dial-up Internet connection through the server. (His new office is not in the service area for DSL or cable ISPs.)

I did some reading and thought I had the answer, but I can't seem to make it actually work. I made the following changes in Routing & Remote Access Server (RRAS)....

-- Added the modem as a hardware demand-dial device
-- Added the ISP phone number and other login information
-- Added static routing (destination & mask both 0.0.0.0)
-- Added NAT & Firewall to the modem device

I also went into DNS and set up the ISP DNS servers as forwarders.

This appears to work from the server itself. If I pull up IE and browse to Google, it will automatically dial and connect. However, I can't make it work from the workstations. I set the dial-in permission to "Always allow" for the domain users, but I don't think that actually applies here.

Is there an easier way to do this?

Does anyone know what I missed?

As a side note, the connection doesn't seem to last very long -- rarely more than about a minute, and sometimes only a few seconds. For example, I may do a Google search, and by the time I've scrolled through the ten matches and click "Next", it has to dial out again. That struck me as rather odd. (From the same machine with the same hardware connecting through a regular DUN entry, or whatever they call it these days, I didn't have any trouble staying connected.)

I know this is a fairly advanced question, but I'm just trying to help out a friend, and I feel like I'm very close to the correct solution...

[Starfury_2260]

Seems to me it might be simpler to setup ICS (through network setup wizard) and tell it your internet connection is the dialup and your network connection is however the system connects to the other computers. I was easily able to set my laptop so it could access the dialup connection on my desktop just by putting the gateway for it as the desktop's IP on the network (between the computers), after running the network setup wizard. I dont know if that would work with 2k3 and how you have it set but it might.

[McGuireV10]

ICS doesn't work with Active Directory.

[Siliconjunkie]

This isnt an AD issue at all. AD doesn't care about the modem or ICS. Have you tried the HELP in 2003? I just checked and searching for "Internet Connection Sharing" brought me right to instructions. Dont underestimate the built in help, lots of good info in there.

The static route part is unnecessary. Unless you are doing some kind of funky routing that you arent showing, it will use the modem for any network that it isn't local to it, if it set to dial on demand. All of the PCs will also need that box specified as their default gateway.