Discussion Page and IP/port number problems

[Charles Robinson]

I'm working on setting up a cluster of servers which is behind a load
balancer, and it is causing me some grief.

Picture a set of machines on a private network, running IIS6.0,
application center 2000, with FP extensions. As an example, let's say
that IIS on the three machines is listening at: [any ip address]:1001
(that's port 1001). The machines are at 10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.2, and 10.0.0.3
and are configured for a "3rd-party load balancer".

The load balancer has a public address, and listens on port 80. Let's say
for example that the public address is 209.98.50.1

So, all requests at 209.98.50.1:80 are re-routed internally to one of the
3 machines, at port 1001.

If I go to the public address, I see my discussion board. I go to post a
message, and that works too. But when I get to the generated screen which
has "refresh this page" or the contents/search/post links, they all have a
bizarred combination of the "public" IP address and the "private" port
number, like this:

http://209.98.50.1:1001 [http://public_address:private_port_number]!

Now, the load balancer is only listening to port 80, not 1001, so none of
these links work. And due to the method I'm using for the load balancer
(which has worked with every other type of machine before) I need to use
these "non-standard" ports behind the load balancer.

Does anyone have a clue where the FrontPage code is pulling this data
from? Better yet, how to make it stop caring about the port number?

(And if I'm asking in the wrong place, I'd dearly appreciate a shove in
the right direction. I'm just about at my wit's end - no, I'm past it!)

-Charles

 

[Jim Buyens]

FrontPage doesn't know what the load balancer is doing, so it's generating
URLs based on what it does know: the incoming request and/or the local
machine.

I think that to beat this, you'll need to locate a third-party discussion
board or write your own in ASP.NET or ASP.

Jim Buyens
Microsoft MVP
http://www.interlacken.com
Author of:
*-----------------------------­-----------------------
|\----------------------------­-----------------------
|| Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Inside Out
|| Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 Inside Out
||----------------------------­-----------------------
|| Web Database Development Step by Step .NET Edition
|| Microsoft FrontPage Version 2002 Inside Out
|| Faster Smarter Beginning Programming
|| (All from Microsoft Press)
|/----------------------------­-----------------------
*-----------------------------­-----------------------

I'm working on setting up a cluster of servers which is behind a load
balancer, and it is causing me some grief.

Picture a set of machines on a private network, running IIS6.0,
application center 2000, with FP extensions. As an example, let's say
that IIS on the three machines is listening at: [any ip address]:1001
(that's port 1001). The machines are at 10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.2, and 10.0.0.3
and are configured for a "3rd-party load balancer".

The load balancer has a public address, and listens on port 80. Let's say
for example that the public address is 209.98.50.1

So, all requests at 209.98.50.1:80 are re-routed internally to one of the
3 machines, at port 1001.

If I go to the public address, I see my discussion board. I go to post a
message, and that works too. But when I get to the generated screen which
has "refresh this page" or the contents/search/post links, they all have a
bizarred combination of the "public" IP address and the "private" port
number, like this:

http://209.98.50.1:1001 [http://public_address:private_port_number]!

Now, the load balancer is only listening to port 80, not 1001, so none of
these links work. And due to the method I'm using for the load balancer
(which has worked with every other type of machine before) I need to use
these "non-standard" ports behind the load balancer.

Does anyone have a clue where the FrontPage code is pulling this data
from? Better yet, how to make it stop caring about the port number?

(And if I'm asking in the wrong place, I'd dearly appreciate a shove in
the right direction. I'm just about at my wit's end - no, I'm past it!)

-Charles

--
Charles Robinson
Minneapolis, MN
(e-mail address removed)
http://charles.robinsontwins.org