I’m so confused

I got so sick of my ISP’s poor mail hosting service that I thought “ah…I’ve been wanting to learn about OS X Server for a while”. I’m an avid OS X client user and have been for years, I know a fair bit about IP but not much about DNS and this is why I have a problem.

I have an ADSL router in my home which has a static IP address, I own two domain names (a buckley-mellor.com one and buckley-mello.co.uk, the .co.uk one is less important though right now) that I can manage to some extent (add mx entries etc) via a web-page on my ISP’s site. I installed 10.4 server (onto a G4 cube of all things, it’ll be powerful enough for me) and gave it a computer name and a machine name (“picasso” btw) but you can’t give it a hostname anymore with 10.4, it’s just picasso

What I want to do is to host my mail for both domains on this server, plus use it for basic AFP for myself and my wife (so only two real accounts) but ideally using OpenDirectory with Kerberos and SSL (I know, walk before I run right ). I’ve been messing aorund for a few days now and I’m just confused. I’ve bought and read the peachpit 10.3 server book but the DNS setup has all changed. Do I NEED to run DNS on this server or is it just because I want to do mail/OpenDirectory? If I have to run DNS do I have to make my machine picasso.buckley-mellor.com? and if so how? how would I make it deal with the .co.uk version too? when do I move it to being an OpenDirectory master? what changes do I need to make on my ISP’s domain management page – god I’m confused. I called Apple and the person there was very nice but I’m not sure I asked the right questions? also how should I setup my client machines? what dns servers should they be pointed at? what search domains?

It’s really ironic that I know loads about the layer 1, 2 and 3 aspect of this, just not the DNS. Can anyone help? I’d pay someone to help but there’s nobody in the area that’s up on this stuff I’m afraid.

Thank you.

Phil.