Load balancing loses authentication

[jim corey]

My intranet ASP.NET web app is set up with Windows authentication and
IIS is set to disallow anonymous access.

The app is in a web farm configuration with two blade servers and
a BigIP F5 switch set with sticky sessions.

When I use the app and refresh the screen, the next thing I do in the
app causes a network login box to pop up. In the log, where I
typically
see my network id and ip address, I see just the ip address and a 401
error.

This only happens when I go through the switch, and only when I
refresh the screen. If I connect directly to either of the blade
servers directly there is no problem.

TIA,
Jim

 

[M. Posseth]

do you use application center ???

if so

start application center on the master server , connect to the cluster (
extend the application center node (topmost) and select the cluster name
(most of us have only one ) )

press the righ mouse button and choose properties , select the tab request
forwarding , select all availlable check boxes

and your problem should be solved ,,, another great benefit is that you
are now also capable of developing from the internet side on the webserver
cause also frontpage requests are forwarded to the master server application
center handles the synchronisation to the other cluster members


what have you just done ??

you told application center that a session should always be forwarded to the
same server as long as the session state is alive

hope this helps

M. Posseth [MCP]

 

[Jim Corey]

M,

Much thanks for the reply, but we do not use Application Center.

Was this procedure going to affect the configuration of
the F5 switch (something I know nothing about)?
Note that I mentioned that this was already set up with sticky sessions,
which work except for this one situation.

Jim