How to explicitly set a specific network adaptor for cluster communication on a member server in Application Center 2000

This article describes how to explicitly set a specific network adaptor for cluster communication on a member server. You set the network adaptor after the member server has been added to a Microsoft Application Center 2000 cluster.

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Note Always back up the metabase before you edit it.

When you add a member server to an existing Application Center 2000 cluster or when you create a cluster controller, Application Center 2000 determines which network adaptors are used for client communication and which network adaptors are used for cluster communication on the member server.

The cluster communication network is for used for internal cluster communication. This network should be separate from the client communication network. The client communication network provides application services to clients such as HTTP and Microsoft COM+.

Application Center assigns a unique GUID to each network adaptor on the member server. Assigning unique GUIDs enables Application Center to determine which network adaptor will be used to communicate with clients or with other cluster members.

The list of GUIDs that are assigned to the cluster communication network is maintained in the Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) metabase.

Depending on your network infrastructure, you may have to change the internal cluster communication network adaptor list. Because there is no user interface to edit this list, you must use a tool such as MetaEdit or Mdutil if you want to change the list.

You can use one of the following methods to determine which network adaptors that Application Center is using for cluster communication.

• Use the Mdutil.exe utility that is located in the Support folder on the Application Center 2000 CD-ROM to interrogate the list that is stored in the metabase. To do this, follow these steps:
  1. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.
  2. At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER.
     mdutil get /AppCenter/Server -prop 57447
• You can also perform a Microsoft Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) query to determine the GUIDs of your network adaptors. To do this, run the following Microsoft Visual Basic script.

  Dim IPConfigSet
     Dim strNIC
     Dim CRLF 
  
     CRLF = CHR(10) & CHR(13)
  
     ' Perform a WMI query to obtain information about the network adaptors that are bound to IP and that have a physical MAC address.
     Set IPConfigSet = _
        GetObject("winmgmts:").ExecQuery _
           ("Select * from Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration Where ((IPEnabled = TRUE) And (MacAddress != NULL) And (SettingID != NULL))")
  
     ' Enumerate the results (list of NICS).
     For Each IPConfig In IPConfigSet
        If Not IsNull(IPConfig.IPAddress) Then
           strNIC = _
              "Caption: " & IPConfig.Caption & CRLF & _
              "Description: " & IPConfig.Description & CRLF & _
              "NIC GUID: " & IPConfig.SettingID
           For i = LBound(IPConfig.IPAddress) To UBound(IPConfig.IPAddress)
              strNIC = strNIC & CRLF & "IP Address (" & CStr(i) & "):" & IPConfig.IPAddress(i)
           Next 'i
           Wscript.Echo strNIC
        End If
     Next 'IPConfig
  

To change the network adaptor that is used for cluster communication, type the following command at a command prompt:

mdutil set /AppCenter/Server -prop 57447 -value "{GUID of network adaptor 1},{GUID of network adaptor 2}

When you replace GUID of network adaptor 1 and GUID of network adaptor 2 with the actual GUIDs, the command would look similar to the following:

mdutil set /AppCenter/Server -prop 57447 -value {6628EE2A-8DFD-4782-83C8-982CE377D9FF},{ECAC57F1-203B-47f1-8FE4-BA0AE16DA2C3}

For more information about the IIS metabase, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information about the Adsutil and MetaEdit utilities , click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: