Building your Network Location Server (NLS) on its own system

If you zipped through the default settings when configuring DirectAccess, or worse used the Getting Started Wizard, chances are that your Network Location Server (NLS) is running right on the DirectAccess server itself. This is not the recommended method for using NLS, it really should be running on a separate web server. In fact, if you later want to do something more advanced such as setting up load balanced DirectAccess servers, you're going to have to move NLS off onto a different server anyway. So you might as well do it right the first time.

NLS is a very simple requirement, yet a critical one. It is just a website, it doesn't matter what content the site has, and it only has to run inside your network. Nothing has to be externally available. In fact, nothing should be externally available, because you only want this site being accessed internally. This NLS website is a large part of the mechanism by which DirectAccess client...