Re: Windows 2003 Network Load Balancing Problem

Rodney:

I'm still confused. What would be the "real/physical" IP associated with
the NIC's in my example below? The example I cited below is set up like the
NLB config I am testing. The only IP addresses I see in the Network
Connections for the NLB NIC (i.e., NLB NIC in unicast mode on a front rail
switch - ONLY virtual IPs) are the multiple NLB virtual cluster addresses
I've set up. The NLB Manager shows 0.0.0.0 (mask 0.0.0.0) for the dedicated
IP address. My only non-NLB IP (dedicated management IP) is on a separate,
back rail NIC. There are only virtual IP addresses associated with the NLB
NIC, as far as I can tell. Are you talking about the MAC addresses?

Ken


"Rodney R. Fournier [MVP]" <rod@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message news:OWaqDUjiGHA.4080@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Traffic always comes into the Virtual but always leaves on the
real/physical.

Cheers,

Rodney R. Fournier

MVP - Windows Server - Clustering
http://www.nw-america.com - Clustering Website
http://www.msmvps.com/clustering - Blog
http://www.clusterhelp.com - Cluster Training
ClusterHelp.com is a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner


"Ken L" <kenl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23%23OYUSbiGHA.1276@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Rodney:

I am confused regarding your answer below. What would happen in the case
where the NIC servicing the cluster ONLY has virtual addresses on it.
For example

Server A Server B
100.x.x.1 virt clstr addr 100.0.0.1
100.x.x.2 virt clstr addr 100.0.0.2

(and further assume that there is a second, back rail NIC with dedicated
addresses on it for admin purposes).

What would be the "real" IP address in this case, based on your response
to Shane?

Won't the web server respond to the browser through the address the
transaction came in on (i.e., the virtual address). I can see where the
MAC addresses will be mangled, but I don't see why the NLB intermediate
driver would change the IP address of the web server.

Ken

"Rodney R. Fournier [MVP]" <rod@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message news:ekgFrU9ZGHA.4144@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The NLB address is not real, it's a Virtual. NLB sends on the real
network address. That is just how NLB works, sounds like you need to
accept the real server's IPs in your app.

Cheers,

Rodney R. Fournier

MVP - Windows Server - Clustering
http://www.nw-america.com - Clustering Website
http://msmvps.com/clustering - Blog
http://www.clusterhelp.com - Cluster Training
ClusterHelp.com is a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner


<shane.ogrady@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1145619637.106060.30500@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi,
I'm hoping someone can answer my question about Windows Network Load
Balancing.
Running Windows 2003 Enterprise SP1.

I run many different websites and thus have many different public IPs.
Usually I have assigned the public IPs to my network interface in
Windows and associated the websites via IPs in IIS and/or using host
headers.
I want to set up NLB across two servers for one of my main sites which
can get quite busy.

I set up the site using the NLB manager in Windows 2003 with one public
IP address for the cluster.
So the setup was thus:

Server A - Public Interface Server B - Public Interface
-------------------------------------
-------------------------------------
100.x.x.1 100.x.x.2
100.x.x.3 (Clustered IP) 100.x.x.3 (Clustered IP)
100.x.x.20 100.x.x.30
100.x.x.15
100.x.x.18

It all seemed to work well with perfmon showing the load was being
shared evenly accross both servers for the specific website. I set up
rules for port 80 and 443 with affinity set to single host (Classic ASP
E-Commerce Application) for both rules.

However a lot of e-commerce transactions failed due to my payment
processor not recognising the IP that the request had come from.

What was happening was that although the NLB cluster was receiving
request correctly on the clustered IP it seemed to send requests out on
a different IP, in this instance 100.x.x.1 or 100.x.x.30

Is this normal for NLB? I can't imagine so? Is there any way to fix
this?









.

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