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T Chung

2 Posts

9545

July 25th, 2005 07:00

NIC problem with Windows 2003 Cluster and Exchange 2003 running on Dell PowerEdge 1855

I have 10 Dell Blade Servers (PowerEdge 1855) running on a same Blade chassis.
 
2 of the servers are configured with Windows 2003 Cluster (MS active/passive cluster mode)
  • 2 severs (say node1 and node2) have the same configures
  • Dual CPU, 4 MB RAM
  • 2 NICs (Intel PRO/1000 MB Dual Port Network Connection), one for Cluster Private NIC and one for Public LAN NIC
  • Both nodes share a same SAN disk (DELL/EMC CX300)
Initially, the cluster works fine, the cluster resources can be fail-overed correctly.
 
The problem occurred after I installed Exchange 2003 and a series of latest MS hotfixes:
  • Now when I tried to restart any nodes of the cluster (i.e. total 2 nodes), the restarted node's NICs will all come with a status of invalid IP Address and cannot connect to the network at all (both NICs are configured with Static IP address).
  • If I go into the console, open the network connections, select the NIC and do a "disable" and then "enable" the specific NIC, the NIC will work again and can join the cluster as normal.
Now, even when I remove Exchange installation, reapply the Windows hotfixes, the problem still existed as long as the node is joining the cluster.
 
Having said that, if I remove the node from the cluster (e.g. node1) and do a restart on that node (i.e. node1), the NICs will work correctly once the node restarted (i.e. not in cluster).  If I add that node (e.g. node1) back to the cluster, the problem come back again.
 
Not sure if this is MS Windows issues or Dell's issue?
 
Thanks,
TC

Jakgumbo

5 Posts

October 4th, 2005 23:00

do you have a firewall and are you natting any addresses to the your exchange server?

T Chung

2 Posts

October 5th, 2005 06:00

Yes, we do have firewall.

BTW, the issues have been resolved after I applied Windows 2003 Service Pack 1.  It seems that this is Microsoft's issue.

Thanks!

Snyder81

1 Message

October 20th, 2005 21:00

This is problem in clustering.  I did not realize it was fixed in Service Pack 1.  The way to fix this issue pre-SP1 is by going into the Windows Registry and disabling DHCP Media Sense.
 
The MSKB article can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q239924/.
 
1.Use Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe) to view the following key in the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters
Add the following registry value:
Value Name: DisableDHCPMediaSense
Data Type: REG_DWORD -Boolean
Value Data Range: 0, 1 (False, True) Default: 0 (False)
Description: This parameter controls DHCP Media Sense behavior. If you set this value data to 1, DHCP, and even non-DHCP, clients ignore Media Sense events from the interface. By default, Media Sense events trigger the DHCP client to take an action, such as attempting to obtain a lease (when a connect event occurs), or invalidating the interface and routes (when a disconnect event occurs).2.Restart your computer.
 

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