Windows Cluster IP/Hostname doesn't respond to UNC requests, yet ping and RDP work

Question

I have a Windows Server 2003 cluster of 2 nodes in an active-passive configuration. I can ping both nodes, rdp and access their unc shares.

I also have an alias, which directs to a cluster IP set in one of the cluster groups for SQL. (I'm not the SQL administrator and have had only a little exposure to it). This alias responds to pings and RDP goes to the active node, which works correctly.

However I can't access the UNC shares for that alias. The DNS record is obviously correct as it's handling ping and RDP ok.

What's interesting is that I can RDP to the alias (which in turn is the active node) and then try accessing the unc share of the \localhost or \127.0.0.1 fails also.

I've looked at other questions on here before opening the this question and checked recent updates etc. But I feel these don't relate to my issue.

This has worked for quite a while and the only thing that has changed is that we have had to bring the whole data center down recently for much needed power maintenance work. Which makes me question perhaps a service didn't start.

Also whats worth mentioning is, is that I would have liked to failover to the passive node and see if the problem persists on that but I have a rather small time frame to take the server down which is early in the morning so I'm trying to avoid that if I can.

Edit

My problem appears to be that all my groups, "Cluster Group" and "SQL Group" can be pinged and RDP'd by their cluster name and cluster IP, however I cannot access any UNC share on the cluster IP or name of any of my groups.

If I browse to \SQLGroupClusterName from any networked machine I get "The network path was not found" error.

If I rdp to SQLGroupClusterName (which works) then browse to \SQLGroupClusterName from QLGroupClusterName I get the same error message.

Answer 1

Is this to have a file share on the SQL cluster? If you share a drive on node1 then do a failover to node2 the file share will go away unless you define it as a cluster service. There is a resource type simply called File Share in cluster administrator, this way the active node will have the file share (don't use admin file shares). Make this depend on the physical disk and the cluster IP address.

Answer 2

Bearing in mind the following two points:

1. If you are using a file share resource in the cluster this shouldn't be needed.
2. From your description it should be working correctly.

Here is a solution:

On 2003 connecting to a share with a different dns alias then the server name (otherwise known as multihoming) requires you to disable the DisableStrictNameChecking registry entry. It is supposedly a "Feature" of SMB.

You can reference the complete instructions on making the change here: KB281308