Re: Problem with Microsoft WLBS on Nortel Passport 8010 with BayStack

I think you need version 3.2.2 to get it working.
In version 3.3 (not sure) but certainly 3.5 there is another way to solve
this problem.
See the manual  "configuring Ip multicast routing protocols".
I haven't tried it myself, but there is a way to specify a multicast address
staticly to a port instead of flooding it.

In earlier version you could use 'multicast -mac-flooding'.  But be aware
that you flood it through the whole vlan !

It is very stupid that microsoft uses a non-standard way for multicast
traffic.

Alain
"Alexf" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> I have two BayStack's 450 as access switches connected to a Nortel
> Passport 8010 acting as Layer III switch/router.  The BayStack
> Uplink-Modules connect to Passport port via Gigabit Ethernet. One Bay
> connects to Port 1/1 and the other one to 10/1.
>
> We try to use the Microsoft W2000 Clustering solution with Load
> Balancing (WLBS) to give some 100 PC's access to the web application
> using the virtual cluster IP address. We planed to achieve both load
> balancing and redundancy with this. According to Microsoft the
> solution works only if the IP traffic is distributed to both cluster
> hosts simultaneosly.
>
> The problem is that the Passports seems to send the IP traffic only to
> one BAY Switch and thus only to one Cluster Host. The ARP resolution
> places the following entry in the ARP cache of the Passport:
>
> sh ip arp info 134.247.151.44
> IP_ADDRESS       MAC_ADDRESS        VLAN PORT  TYPE      TTL
> 134.247.151.44   03:bf:86:f7:97:2c  99   10/1  Dymamic   1742
>
> where 134.247.151.44 is IP is the cluster virtual IP address and the
> 03:bf:86:f7:97:2c is the multicast MAC address for the cluster in
> multicast mode.
>
> Sometimes the other BAY switch on port 1/1 register faster
>
> IP_ADDRESS       MAC_ADDRESS        VLAN PORT  TYPE      TTL
> 134.247.151.44   03:bf:86:f7:97:2c  99   1/1  Dymamic   1742
> and the traffic goes the other way to the second Bay via 1/1 port
> instead of 10/1 but never on both.
>
> The Version of the Passport software is 3.1
>
> Can anyone help me with this:
> - do I need to setup something more, in order to force the Passport to
> distribute traffic simulaneosly to both Bay switches?
>
> - do I need to upgrade the Passport image to something newer?
>
> I tried both musticast und unicast modes with the cluster with no
> success.
>
> thanks in advance
> alex