Windows 2000 Advanced Server Help

HongKongPolice · Post by **HongKongPolice** » Wed Feb 12, 2003 11:52 am

I was told that with Win2K Advanced Server, I am able to set 2 NICs up with the same IP, and have them share the network load, is this true?

I have Win2K AS installed on a dual celery server with 2x 3Com NICs, but I don't know how to get this load balancing thing working.

I think that the widespread "Dynamic load balancing" feature listed on the web is for 2 servers, not 2 NICs

RoundEye · Post by **RoundEye** » Wed Feb 12, 2003 12:20 pm

Why do you need the same IP, and are you plugging both NICs into the same switch?

HongKongPolice · Post by **HongKongPolice** » Wed Feb 12, 2003 12:28 pm

Yes they're plugged into the same switch

I wanna balance the network load between both NICs, cuz it'll be a file server, CS server, and maybe even webserver all in 1

cyberskye · Post by **cyberskye** » Wed Feb 12, 2003 12:34 pm

http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... -us;303817

This what you're looking for?

Skye

HongKongPolice · Post by **HongKongPolice** » Wed Feb 12, 2003 2:03 pm

Originally posted by cyberskye
http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... -us;303817

This what you're looking for?

Skye

Nope, that feature is meant for servers spread over multiple PCs, so that all the PCs will share the load. I need to know how to setup 2 NICs (Assign 1 IP to both) on the same computer to share the network load.

I was told that this was possible?

cyberskye · Post by **cyberskye** » Wed Feb 12, 2003 2:37 pm

Windows 2000 Network Load Balancing (NLB) does not create a virtual adapter.

MORE INFORMATION
Windows 2000 does not require a virtual adapter for NLB. Instead, you can enable NLB on any adapter that appears in the "Network and Dial-up Connections" tool in Control Panel by right-clicking the adapter, clicking Properties, and then clicking to select the Network Load Balancing check box.

Nope, that feature is meant for servers spread over multiple PCs, so that all the PCs will share the load. I need to know how to setup 2 NICs (Assign 1 IP to both) on the same computer to share the network load.

True, but what's the major difference to the system? Still attaching a listener to a single address that is served by multiple NICs - just in your case they happen to be on the same machine. You are clustering NICs. My understanding is that you have to configure it that way. I certainly don't know everything about windows, tho.

Good Luck,

Skye

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Wed Feb 12, 2003 2:47 pm

http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... -us;303751

I've only dabbled a little bit with dual NICs using Compaq's Teaming software on a special Cisco switch that worked with it.

Generally it's used more for honking database servers.....who's software works with it well on the client side...as in UNC pathed data, etc.

Why not just a single quality server NIC, like a 3COM 990XP?

RoundEye · Post by **RoundEye** » Wed Feb 12, 2003 6:49 pm

Originally posted by YeOldeStonecat

Why not just a single quality server NIC, like a 3COM 990XP?

That's what I was thinking, even Linksys makes a 32bit Giganic now.

I'm still wondering why it has to be the same IP? If it were two different IP's I might be able to help you get it set up.

Also do you want to balance between clients on your LAN, or balance between clients on the WAN and LAN?

HongKongPolice · Post by **HongKongPolice** » Thu Feb 13, 2003 12:45 am

Well, i need to load balancing cuz its a file server. If I'm transfering stuff @ 100Mbit/s through a nic, it'll lag things up no matter how good the nic is.

I also have these 3Coms lying around and since they're pretty good NICs, why not?

I thought it'll be better to have both NICs using the same IP, cuz then it'll be "true" load balancing. Its gonna be a CS server, file server, and webserver, so yes I need it to balance the load between LAN and WAN.

If the nics have different IPs, then basically, 1 NIC will handle WAN, and the other will do LAN, but then the LAN bandwidth is restricted to 100Mbit/s, whereas if I can get both NICs using the same IP, i can effectively get 200Mbit/s LAN side.

cyberskye · Post by **cyberskye** » Thu Feb 13, 2003 10:36 am

whereas if I can get both NICs using the same IP, i can effectively get 200Mbit/s LAN side.

Not exactly...you'll have the ability to sustain two 100MB connects. One connection will be leveled to a given NIC, not spread across two or more. The NIC that's free handles the request.

HongKongPolice · Post by **HongKongPolice** » Thu Feb 13, 2003 4:14 pm

Argh I can't even get this working. Whenever I bind network load balancing to 1 NIC, it unbinds the other.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Thu Feb 13, 2003 7:32 pm

Is this on a home connection? I don't see how a home connection can even begin to tax a 20 dollar desktop NIC.

We had our public gaming server using a 3COM 990XP, sitting full duplex switched to the data centers router which had 4x OC-3 lines feeding it.

Ran 4x game servers full time (averaging averaging 60 - 80 clients all together, sometimes near 100, a very popular forum, plus another forum, half a dozen websites, VNC and PcA host for admin, map redirect downloads, FTP site, mIRC server....and that NIC never broke a sweat.

HongKongPolice · Post by **HongKongPolice** » Fri Feb 14, 2003 8:59 pm

Will a 3Com 905B-TX be under strain if running a 16ppl CS server?

Cuz right now I'm not sure if its the NIC or Windows2K itself that is laggin up my server, when ever theres like 12+ ppl, every1's pings jump 20ms, even LAN users.

cyberskye · Post by **cyberskye** » Sun Feb 16, 2003 1:16 pm

I don't know a lot about CS network loading, but adding 12+ concurrent, persistnt connections to a server could add 20 to latency pretty easily. Latency doesn't matter so much for some apps but CS probably suffers here.

Sounds like this would be the perfect env for a GB uplink to the server...maybe bind http to one NIC and CS to the other? You could also increase the decrease the niceness of the CS exe's in task mgr. This would give them a higher priority in the process queue (experiment with this though as it can cause general stability problems if you're really under-resourced on that host)

Your switch and the large number of services running on this box could also be bottlenecks...I imagine that someone has hosted 16 connections online using less than 100Mbps pipe.

btw- spoke to one of our W2K admins at work - he said that they use the utlilities provided with the NICs themselves - all dual port - to do load balancing.

What kind of box is this?

HongKongPolice · Post by **HongKongPolice** » Sun Feb 16, 2003 7:10 pm

I'm beinning 2 think its a Win2K/CPU problem cuz it only lags during the match, near the end of the match when most ppl are dead, it doesn't lag.

Obviously, theres more data transfer when the match is going on, so that could be a NIC bottleneck...

The box is an Abit BP6 Dual 466@546Mhz, 416MB, Win2K Advanced Server. Don't got load balancing working yet, dunno how 2 set it up.

Right now I don't got any other servers runnin on the box, just CS and it lags. Could RedHat8 improve things?

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Mon Feb 17, 2003 10:55 am

Originally posted by HongKongPolice
I'm beinning 2 think its a Win2K/CPU problem cuz it only lags during the match, near the end of the match when most ppl are dead, it doesn't lag.

Obviously, theres more data transfer when the match is going on, so that could be a NIC bottleneck...

The box is an Abit BP6 Dual 466@546Mhz, 416MB, Win2K Advanced Server. Don't got load balancing working yet, dunno how 2 set it up.

Right now I don't got any other servers runnin on the box, just CS and it lags. Could RedHat8 improve things?

Well, the 905 shouldn't be your issue....when changing maps...there's not really a lot more data transfer meaning the server has to feed lots of data. Running a single game server with that few clients...heck even a DLink or realtek el cheapo NIC would do OK (but stick with your 3COM) Something that would cause that would be if you were running custom maps on your server, and your server was also handling map downloads...so that the server would upload the custom maps to all users logged on.

My guess...now that I see your specs....memory for 1. 416 megs....any chance you could squeeze some more RAM in there. The Celery's aren't really the cause, as I helped build a dual Celery 500 box we used for a LAN party (same mobo as you), had NT 4 server on it, 512 megs (NT 4 Server uses less RAM than 2K), and about 40 peeps at this LAN party. That box ran UT and Q3 matches all day long without a hiccup...with a 905 NIC.

First thing you could try...run Task Manager and watch it while the server changes levels....watch the CPU's and memory use. My initial hunch is you're running out of RAM...hitting that swapfile hard...which on an IDE drive really hurts for a server.

HongKongPolice · Post by **HongKongPolice** » Mon Feb 17, 2003 4:35 pm

Naw its not ram, in task manager says theres still 130Megs free physical ram.

I think CS servers are a lot more CPU/Network intensive cuz of all the bullets flying around, randomizations for each bullet, and for each impact area, etc etc.

I'm using the default Win2K drivers, i've tried using the newest ones from 3Com but didn't notice any difference. I think there maybe somethin wrong with the mobo, maybe its not turning on bus mastering for the NICs cuz i've had a prob with PCI video cards before.

Is there any utility that will check if the PCI bus is @ optimal settings? Also, Win2K already has the latest chipset drivers for the BX chipset right?

Also, i've had this CS server laggin problem before on another comp. Abit BX133-Raid, Celery 800@1Ghz, 320MB ram, Win2K Pro, and 3Com NIC. It lags when the server is full, but doesn't lag as bad as the Dual Celery server, so I'm guessing its a CPU/Win2K problem.

The network connetions have nothing to do with it, everythin is on a Netgear 10/100 Switch, everything is @ 100Mbit half duplex, and I have a 3.5Mbit/800Kbit DSL connection. The server maxes out @ around 500Kbit upstream, so the DSL connection isn't laggin. When it lags, even LAN users lag.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Tue Feb 18, 2003 4:56 pm

If you get the 3COM drivers with the GUI utility...you can set some performance preferences for the NIC's...more CPU intensive but more network performance.....kind of raise it's priority.

RoundEye · Post by **RoundEye** » Tue Feb 18, 2003 5:11 pm

Originally posted by HongKongPolice
..........everythin is on a Netgear 10/100 Switch, everything is @ 100Mbit half duplex........

Why are you running half duplex with a switch? That could cause a problem right there with latency.

Even if you have 130 megs of ram left, that doesn't mean you have enough, it seems to me that sometimes windows will "set aside" some ram in case it needs it for another important process. Kind of like a ram reserve, it will never use all of the ram.

HongKongPolice · Post by **HongKongPolice** » Wed Feb 19, 2003 6:30 am

I have the dos 3Com utillities and all the NICs are already set for Max network performance.

For some reason, i get slower file transfers with full duplex enabled. About 4MB/s compared to 10MB/s @ half duplex, got any tweaks?

Also, my Speedstream 5660 ADSL router gets Ethernet CRC errors and Runt frames @ full duplex as well.

RoundEye · Post by **RoundEye** » Wed Feb 19, 2003 1:47 pm

By design your modem will have to run at half-duplex. The clients on the LAN side should be able to run full duplex and faster at the same time.

I'm wondering as the network gets busy if that's what is causing your lag, in half-duplex the data sends, waits, then receives. It can't send and receive at the same time. If you are having a bunch of collisions plus the "wait" time will cause your latency to go up.

Anasil is a good network analyzer, they also have a 30 day demo, which may be long enough for you to tell where the problem is coming in.