TS Session Directory and NLB

  • Thread starter Thread starter Shane Franchina
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Shane Franchina

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Hi,

I have 5 terminal servers running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition R2
SP2. They are running NLB and together form a NLB cluster. We also have a
terminal services session directory running on another server in the
organisation and all servers are a member of this session directory.

Each terminal server has 2 network interfaces, one for the clients to
connect to (and the one that NLB is enabled on), and the other one is a
management interface.

The issue that we are having is with the configuration of one particular
terminal server. In it's session directory configuration screen, there is no
option to select the correct interface for redirection. The interface simply
is not listed! On all other servers, there are two NICs listed (and we are
able to select the correct interface for redirection), however, on this one
particular server, it is not there. Disabling this management interface
causes the list to go totally blank with no interfaces listed for redirection
at all.

When we disable NLB, the interface appears in the list. It's almost as if it
will not allow us to redirect to an interface that has NLB enabled on it,
even though this works fine on all 4 other servers.

The problem can be temporarily resolved by manually editing the registry
(HKLM > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control > Terminal Server >
ClusterSettings and changing the "SessionDirectoryRedirectionIP" key to the
correct IP - in this case, 10.2.56.5). This works. However, upon enabling the
management interface, this key *automatically* changes back to the management
interface's IP address!

Basically what this means is that when a session is disconnected on this
particular terminal server, and a client goes to reconnect to it (from
another server), they are redirected to the Management interface of this
terminal server which the client does not have access to (it's on a different
subnet, and locked down to prevent unauthorized access).

I have taken the following steps to try and rectify this problem:

1. Deleted the cluster totally and recreated it - no difference.
2. Uninstalled and reinstalled terminal services on affected TS machine - no
difference.
3. Updated the firmware and drivers for the NICs in the affected server - no
difference.
4. Formatted the affected server and reinstalled all patches, service packs,
drivers etc - no difference!
5. Manually editing the registry as stated above, but this does not
permamently solve the problem - enabling the management interface causes it
to change back by itself.
6. Tried swapping the interfaces around, reconfiguring the IPs, NLB etc - no
difference.

The servers are all HP DL380 G5s. They have identical hardware and software
configurations - same amount of RAM, hard drive, network cards etc. The
affected server has had it's mainboard replaced once by HP due to DOA but
there was no operating system installed on it at this time. To us it seems
unlikely that hardware could be a problem (although indeed the replaced
mainboard is the only difference between the terminal servers), but as
stated previously we have updated all the drivers and firmware on the system
to no avail.

Has anybody ever come across a problem like this one.

Any help you may be able to provide on this would be very much appreciated.

Regards

Shane Franchina
 
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