Windows Server 2008 vs. 2003: Different behaviour with multiple IP addresses

Question

We have an IIS server to which we assign multiple IP-Adresses.

In windows server 2003, windows used the ip-adress in the main dialog for outgoing connections . If I assign the ip 192.168.1.4 in the main dialog and the following additional ips 192.168.1.3,5,6 in the detailed dialog. Windows server 2003 uses .4 as ip for the request to our sql server.

In windows server 2008, I observed that windows uses the lowest ip address 192.168.1.3 for the connection to our sql-server, despite 192.168.1.4 entered in the main dialog.

Has anyone else encountered this behaviour?

Answer 1

It does appear to be doing that. In fact it doesn't appear to matter which NIC the connection comes from, the lowest IP is being used.

I've got two NICs in my web servers.

One machine is 10.3.16.4 on the management NIC.

The nic the load ballancer points to have 10.3.16.42, 45, 125, 126, 127 and 128 assigned. All connections to the SQL Server from that server are from 10.3.16.4.

(2 NICs are used so that I can remove the disable the second NIC and do what ever I need to on the host without it effecting the load ballancer.)

Answer 2

I'm not sure if you're looking for a way to change this behavior or not, but you can do so by changing the binding order. It's not too difficult to find documentation detailing this procedure for Windows XP and Server 2003, but I don't see any official docs on Windows Server 2008. I'm guessing it's the same or similar.