ACE Sharepoint with sticky sessions troubles

[Darren Sasso]

Hello,

We are setting our new sharepoint environment up on our new ACE appliance.  We have setup sticky sessions and traffic seems to be flowing properly but we are running into a problem when we take one of the nodes out of service.  Traffic doesn't fail over to the other server without restart IE or whatever browser we are using.  It seems to be stuck to that one server and wont transisiton to the other.  I'm not sure if that is by design but it will start working if the server is put back in service.   We have waited up to five minutes but it still doesn't work.  We have also decreased the sticky timeout to 1 minute as a test but that didnt help either and have also configured persistant rebalance.

parameter-map type http HTTP-PARAM
  case-insensitive
  persistence-rebalance
  set header-maxparse-length 8092
  length-exceed continue

!

sticky http-cookie serverfarm1 serverfarm1_cookie
  cookie insert browser-expire
  timeout 20
  replicate sticky
  serverfarm serverfarm1_sf

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Surya ARBY]

You already have it in your config :

sticky http-cookie serverfarm1 serverfarm1_cookie
  cookie insert browser-expire
  timeout 20

just drop the "timeout 20" which is antagonist with a browser-expire config (timeout=0 / session-based cookie)

[Alvaro Perez Unzueta]

Hello, I make F5 in my page and the output is error. i havent configured the parameter-map is it necesary?

parameter-map type http HTTP-PARAM
  case-insensitive
  persistence-rebalance
  set header-maxparse-length 8092
  length-exceed continue

!

Thank you

[Surya ARBY]

Hi.

I already gave you the answer a few post above You can't do anything on the ACE, this is related to the way your application manages sessions. Unless you use a shared database for synchronizing sessions between all the servers, when a specific front end fails, the user will face an error and will have to log in again.

The user will have to close his browser to flush the cookies and then establish a new session.

[Darren Sasso]

Ok i removed the timeout and it still didn't work.  We have a common database on the backend, but i dont believe that keeps any session info, so basically this will never work is what your saying.  IE will have to be closed and reopened for it to work successfully?

Just an FYI when i use fiddler to check the HTTP connections i get a 504 error.

Thanks.

[Surya ARBY]

Hello Daren.

There is a cross topic with the previous forumer

Can you send a pcap file to check a full session establishment

[Surya ARBY]

Daren, for the tests I need :

- be sure that "failaction purge" is enabled.

- start a trace (wireshark or live http header)

- open a sharepoint page

- put the rserver on which the client is sticked out of service

- be sure that the ace marks the server as failed

- try to refresh the page in the browser

and send the capture file here

Just for information; about web based applications, usually after a user is logged in and an application server fails, usually the browser must be closed and then reopened, except if you have a database for synchronizing session states. If the application session is identified with a cookie, closing and reopening the browser will flush this cookie (if it's correctly configured as a "session cookie" - timeout 0 in the application). If the ID is kept with token embedded in URL, it will not work and the user will also have to close his browser.

[Surya ARBY]

Maybe the HTTP 504 error comes from the application server itself because it's not able to recognize the session and you fall into an undefined case not managed by the application, so it doesn't send any response to the web front end, which returns the 504.

Can you retry the test with Firefox, but before refreshing the page, kill all the cookies except the one used by the ACE for persistance ?

[Darren Sasso]

See attached file.

Thanks.

[Surya ARBY]

thanks.

can you try bu flushing all the cookies before ? it seems that the cookie sent by the application is named "WSS_KeepSessionAuthenticated". Try to make your with and without deleting this cookie when you put your rserver out of service.

[Darren Sasso]

Ok so i did a clear sticky database all but that didn't seem to help.  The connection was still stuck.

[Surya ARBY]

Yes, this is because with cookie insertion there is a 1-to-1 mapping between the cookie value and the service of the rserver.

But when the server is in out-of-service, the number of current connections should not increase.

[Darren Sasso]

Just and FYI i upgraded the version of code today from 3.2.0 to 3.2.7 and it fixed the issue.

Thanks for everyones help!!

[andrew.jewell]

Hi Darren,

I am experiencing a similar issue on weblogic set of servers.tried the Purge on fail etc etc but looking at wireshark traces the application is leaving cookies embedded in the browser.Delete these specific cookies and you connect every time.

Was the code upgrade 3.2.7 for your ACE as that seems unfamilar to me.?? as i am looking to upgrae from A3 to A4 code..

We are running a Ace 4710 appliance.

Thanks Andy