Dual NICs

[Jeff_291]

I just installed the System Management Homepage v2.0.1.104 (using Support Pack 7.20) and I'm having a problem on my web servers. The web servers are in a farm and are using Microsoft Application Center, so they have a front-end NIC and a back-end NIC (obviously with seperate IP addresses). On a remote computer, if I try to browse to SMH on the front-end NIC, I get nothing, but it works if I browse the the Back-end NIC. When I did a port query on the server, port 2381 is listening on the back-end NIC, but not on the front-end NIC. Does SMH do something to bind to only one of the NICs? Thanks in advance

[Andrzej Kowalik]

I think it is DNS problem - check if you have correctly configured DNS (or host/lmhost) with both NIC.
regards,
Andrzej

[Jeff_291]

Thank you for the quick response. However, I don't think that's the problem. Everything else works whether I go to the Front-end or back-end NIC. I can even do a port query on port 80, and it's listening on both NIC's. I also tested this on another web farm I have. Before I upgraded, I did a port query on 2301 on both the front-end and back-end and both responded as listening. Then, I upgraded to v2.0.1.104 and it was no longer listening on the front-end, but was listening on the backend.

[Mike Strako]

I had the same problem on a few Win2k3 (non-web) servers. What I ended up doing was uninstalling the agents, deleting the WBEM directory, bounced the box and re-installed the complete 7.20 bundle. It worked fine after that.

[Jeff_291]

Mike, I tried what you recommended, but I still have the same problem. Any other ideas on what it might be? I'm at a loss. Thank you.

[Rich Purvis]

Jeff,
By default the SMH should be trying to talk through all available NICs. Do you have any firewall software running that might block the ports on the non-responsive NIC? SMH has a configuration for binding to specific IP addresses. You might try specifically binding to the IP address that is not working and see if that has any effect.

-Rich

[Jeff_291]

Rich, There is no firewall running on the server, and I did find the IP mapping in the C:\hp\hpsmh\conf\smhpd.conf file. I did find the the IP Address in this file is actually pointing to the back end NIC. So, I tried editing this file to point to the front end NIC. If I stop and start the HP System Management Homepage service or reboot the server, the conf file automatically puts in the IP Address of the back-end NIC again. Strangely enough, I found that if I stop the HP System Management Homepage service, all of a sudden port 2381 is listening on both NIC's, but once I start that service again, it's only listening on the back-end NIC again. Is there some other way to force it to bind to a specific NIC that I'm not seeing?

[Rich Purvis]

Jeff,
Well, if both NIC's have an IP they should have both showed in the conf file. Unless, it is being restricted for some reason. If you want to specifically bind to an IP address you can do this through the SMH. Since you can access it on one of your NICs go ahead and browse to the SMH. Once you are at the main SMH page go to the "Settings" tab. There is a box on this page for SMH, from here go to the "security" link. On this page you will see a link for "IP Binding". Once you go that link you will see a page that will allow you to bind to an IP address or a set of IP addresses.
If there are no restrictions then all the fields should be blank. You may try this and see if it can get the SMH to bind to the IP address you want.
I assume you would have mentioned it, but these NIC's are not actually teaming pairs are they?

-Rich

[Jeff_291]

Rich, well, using the IP Binding did not work. However, for some reason I can't explain, upgrading the server to Windows 2003 SP1 resolved the problem. I can now access port 2301 and 2381 on all interfaces. Thank you for your responses...I really appreciate it!!!
Jeff

[Ragnar Miguel Herreros]

Hi guys,

I had the exact same problem, had we farm and after upgrading the software/s I got this error, port didn´t answer. The thing I did was uninstalling
HP System Management Homepage
HP Version Control Agent 2.1
HP Version Control Repository Manager 2.l
-reboot-
And then install all of the above back in.
Now everything works fine.

Best regards,
Ragnar