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Windows 2000 NLB with multiple NICs

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by ishmell9

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Howdy there... I've got myself 2 servers here, both with dual intel NICs. I want to load balance IIS on them so that they work together and back each other up. I go to configure NLB (for the first time in my life) and I read all the documentation. Well, it looks easy enough, but I have a problem... the documentation sucks. I've searched around everywhere for good documentation about how it is supposed to be configured when you have multiple NICs, but every example I read tells me how to configure one NIC for NLB... well what the heck do I do with the other NIC!?!

I guess my question is this: Do both NICs need "real" IP addresses, or does the "dedicated" NIC have a "real" address and the "cluster" NIC only bind to the virtual address?
I need someone to grab a napkin and a pen and draw it out for me. Thanks. As I am in a major hurry here, I will blow all my techpoints on this question.

10 replies

by cg it

well, ok, just take the other NIC's out if their not necessary for NLB.

by beermonster

Hi,
This caught me out the first time round. Setting the extra nics aside for the mo' - each nic that is to be used for NLB needs it's own dedicated IP address. As you will be aware a 'virtual' address is then specified within the NLB setup - BUT that 'virtual' address must also be added to each nic within the tcpip properties \ advanced area otherwise it just won't work (took me a while to figure that out - after all if you've already specified it in the nlb setup you would just assume that was it, right?). On the subject of extra nics - MS recommends that extra nics be used if the servers will be using backend machines (database servers etc) simply to help wityh the load, but otherwise they are not needed (unlike in a full cluster service install, where you can have a separate nic for the heartbeat). If the nics you have support teaming, then you could give that a try, however the ibm cards we had, once teamed, caused NLB to fail. Also, read technet article Q283963 - available at microsoft.com/technet

as it describes problems that you may have with 2 nics on the same subnet.Hope this helps.

by ishmell9

After typing up a big long comment, IE dumped... so here's the short version:

Thanks.

by chrischapman.za

Hi, Are you using CompaQ SmartStart? If so teaming is relatively easy! First ensure both cards are active and configured correctly. Next There is a utility called CPQTeam, you can start this utility and select both you network cards and click on theteam button. All you have to do now is set the options you want eg, fault-tolerance or load balancing. you can also set whether you want to balance with a MAC or IP Address. The utility really takes care of most of the effort!! I hope this helps, Chris.

by chrischapman.za

Hi, Are you using CompaQ SmartStart? If so teaming is relatively easy! First ensure both cards are active and configured correctly. Next There is a utility called CPQTeam, you can start this utility and select both you network cards and click on theteam button. All you have to do now is set the options you want eg, fault-tolerance or load balancing. you can also set whether you want to balance with a MAC or IP Address. Once the options are set the utility creates an "Ethernet Local Area Connection". The utility really takes care of most of the effort!! I hope this helps, Chris.

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