Windows Vista Forums
Vista Forums Home Join Vista Forums Windows 7 Forum Vista Tutorials Tags
Welcome to Windows Vista Forums. Our forum is dedicated to helping you find solutions with any problems, errors or issues you are experiencing with Windows Vista. The Vista forum also covers news and updates and has an extensive Windows Vista tutorial section that covers a wide range of tips and tricks.

Go Back   Vista Forums > Misc Newsgroups > Indigo

Vista - Problems with NLB (F5 BIG-IP)

 
 
Old 04-26-2007   #1 (permalink)
marc.gravell@gmail.com


 
 

Problems with NLB (F5 BIG-IP)

Heya; I have an IIS/http WCF service that uses transport security and
username/password authentication. All is well on a single box, but for
scalability we want to but an NLB into the mix. Specifically, we have
an existing F5 BIG-IP.

The F5 seems determined to end the SSL at itself, and talk http to the
inner server(s), but of course WCF is demanding https. Now to my mind
an NLB is an essential part of any non-trivial farm, so I'm sure I
must be doing something daft if WCF doesn't like it...

Any ideas what I can do here? The link between the F5 and the inner
farm is secure, so I'd be fine using either http or https inside - but
the problem is either convincing F5 to talk SSL, or WCF to accept the
inbound over http.

Any input hugely appreciated,

Marc


My System SpecsSystem Spec
Old 04-27-2007   #2 (permalink)
Marc Gravell


 
 

Re: Problems with NLB (F5 BIG-IP)

Made some progress on this; IIS was having difficulty as the box hosts
multiple sites; couldn't code the base address in web.config as F5
will contact each box separately, and the web.config is replicated.
Instead, answer appears to be to write a ServiceHostFactory that
filters the addresses accordingly and specify via the svc file.

Fingers crossed...

Marc


My System SpecsSystem Spec
Old 05-17-2007   #3 (permalink)
Scott Holman


 
 

Re: Problems with NLB (F5 BIG-IP)

Marc,

Were you able to resolve the integration issues with BIG-IP and WCF? I will
eventually have to host my service behind a F5 NLB with SSL. The few posts
I've read seem to indicate that this scenario cannot be accomplished by
simply tweaking the web.config.

Thanks

Scott

"Marc Gravell" <marc.gravell@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:%23oDVPkKiHHA.4624@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> Made some progress on this; IIS was having difficulty as the box hosts
> multiple sites; couldn't code the base address in web.config as F5 will
> contact each box separately, and the web.config is replicated. Instead,
> answer appears to be to write a ServiceHostFactory that filters the
> addresses accordingly and specify via the svc file.
>
> Fingers crossed...
>
> Marc
>



My System SpecsSystem Spec
Old 05-21-2007   #4 (permalink)
Marc Gravell


 
 

Re: Problems with NLB (F5 BIG-IP)

Yes; originally the problem was that F5 wasn't re-encrypting to talk
to WCF - however you can configure this at the F5 (for convenience, I
used the same certificate for the F5 as the actual IIS servers, so
that if F5 is offline for maintenance I can simply re-point at the IIS
farm and the certificates will still match).

My second problem was pure IIS; my production server was (predictably)
hosting multiple sites, and WCF was unable to resolve which one; to
fix this I re-configured WCF to disregard all HTTP addresses, leaving
just SSL (which only arrives on the primary IP), by using a custom
ServiceHostFactory (only a handful of lines).

I now have an IIS farm behind F5 running WCF over SSL very sweetly.

Marrc


My System SpecsSystem Spec
 

Thread Tools


Similar Threads
Thread Forum
Big vista problems need help icon/background/graphics/personalise problems Vista performance & maintenance
laptop start up problems and problems in general General Discussion
Problems starting command prompt on cygwin on vista ultimate, problems not had on Win2k3SP2 Vista General
2 different vista problems. Memory dump crash and startup repair cannot fix problems Vista General
Downgrading from 64bit Vista to 32bit, Media Center problems, web page printing problems Vista installation & setup


Vista Forums is an independent web site and has not been authorized,
sponsored, or otherwise approved by Microsoft Corporation.
"Windows Vista", the Start Orb, and related materials are trademarks of Microsoft Corp.
© Designer Media Ltd

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46