Configuring a High Available TFTP Service in a Microsoft Cluster

[Rui Vilao]

Greetings,

We need to create a High Available TFTP server.
Within a cluster group of Microsoft Cluster Services (MSCS), I have
configured WinAgents TFTP Service as a generic service. The cluster
group has also virtual IP.
Our problem is that the TFTP service only responds to the physical IP
of the server and not to the cluster group virtual IP.

Is there a way to configure WinAgents TFTP Service in a Microsoft
Cluster?

Is there any other TFTP software that can run within Microsoft Cluster
Services?

TIA,

Kind Regards,

Rui Vilão

[Mike Rosado [MSFT]]

Hi Rui,

I'm by no means an expert in this subject matter of TFTP, but I'll try to
assist you to the best of my ability. We would probably not recommend
setting TFTP up on a Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS), if any clustering
technologies were to be recommended it be setup on it would be NLB (formally
known as WLBS) using the following article:

219285 Load Balancing FTP with WLBS
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=219285

Reason for recommending NLB over MSCS, is based on excerpt from the
following article:

832017 Service overview and network port requirements for the Windows Server
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=832017

Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) is a file transfer protocol that is
designed to support diskless boot environments. The TFTP service listens on
UDP port 69 but responds from a randomly allocated high port. Therefore,
enabling this port will let the TFTP service receive incoming TFTP requests,
but will not let the selected server respond to those requests. The service
is free to respond to any such request from any source port it wishes, and
the remote client will then use that port for the duration of the transfer.
Communication is bidirectional. If you need to enable this protocol through
a firewall, it may be useful to open UDP port 69 inbound. You can then rely
on other firewall features, which dynamically allow the service to respond
through temporary holes on any other port.

System service name: "tftpd"

+==============+==========+====+
| Application protocol | Protocol | Ports |
+==============+==========+====+
| TFTP | UDP | 69 |
+==============+==========+====+

--
Hope this helps,
Mike Rosado
Windows 2000 MCSE + MCDBA
Microsoft Enterprise Platform Support
Windows NT/2000/2003 Cluster Technologies

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-----Original Message-----

"Rui Vilao" <rui....@rocketmail.com> wrote in message
news:385a715f.05030...@posting.google.com...

[Rodney R. Fournier [MVP]]

I agree, Webdav is much better solution today. TFTP is so 1970's.

Cheers,

Rod

MVP - Windows Server - Clustering
http://www.nw-america.com - Clustering
http://msmvps.com/clustering - Blog

"Mike Rosado [MSFT]" <mik...@online.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:eU4xo2o...@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...

[Rui Vilao]

Hi,

Many thanks to Mike and Rodney for their contribution.

The required clustering architecture is active/standby.

I am not very familiar with NLB because I have never used it…
However I have already set-up a few clusters using MSCS…

I was planning to use MSCS and not NLB because the TFTP root directory
would be located in the shared storage. So in case of the failure of
the active node, the storage and the IP would switch over the standby
nodes. Clients could still tftp put and all uploaded by the clients
would be located in the same directory for further processing by our
application.

Any help/suggestion is highly appreciated.

TIA.

Kind Regards,

Rui Vilao.

[Mike Rosado [MSFT]]

Rui,

Is you wish to use MSCS, that fine. But be WARNED, that you may encounter
problems that are not Cluster related. The problems you may encounter would
be related to the way TFTP replies back.

As stated previously, the TFTP service listens on UDP port 69 but responds

from a randomly allocated high port. Therefore, enabling this port will let
the TFTP service receive incoming TFTP requests, but will not let the
selected server respond to those requests.

You may also want to read this article with regards to Clusftp.vbs in
WIndows Server 2003.

887417 The IIS Server Instance resource type does not appear in Cluster
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=887417

--
Hope this helps,
Mike Rosado
Windows 2000 MCSE + MCDBA
Microsoft Enterprise Platform Support
Windows NT/2000/2003 Cluster Technologies

====================================================
When responding to posts, please "Reply to Group" via your newsreader so
that others may learn and benefit from your issue.
====================================================

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<http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm>

-----Original Message-----

"Rui Vilao" <rui....@rocketmail.com> wrote in message
news:385a715f.05030...@posting.google.com...

> Hi,
>
> Many thanks to Mike and Rodney for their contribution.
>
> The required clustering architecture is active/standby.
>

> I am not very familiar with NLB because I have never used it.
> However I have already set-up a few clusters using MSCS.

[Rui Vilao]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your suggestion.
My original idea to use MSCS was because the nodes that are running
ftfp server are already part of a MSCS cluster…
I will try to make some tests with tftp and NLB clustering in our LAB
(btw we are using WinAgents tftp server)…
Do you know if it is possible to have NLB and MSCS running on the
servers?

[Todd J Heron]

Do you mean NLB and MSCS running on the *same* servers, at the same time?

No.

--
Todd J Heron, MCSE
Windows Server 2003/2000/NT
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: I do not top-post or bottom-post so that my responses are always easy
to read in this forum and the Google Archives. This posting is provided
"as is" with no warranties and confers no rights.

[Mike Rosado [MSFT]]

Rui,

No, you can not have NLB and MSCS on the same server at the same time. They
are 2 totally different technologies, see the following article for more
information:

235305 Interoperability between MSCS and NLB
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=235305

--
Hope this helps,
Mike Rosado
Windows 2000 MCSE + MCDBA
Microsoft Enterprise Platform Support
Windows NT/2000/2003 Cluster Technologies

====================================================
When responding to posts, please "Reply to Group" via your newsreader so
that others may learn and benefit from your issue.
====================================================

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
<http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm>

-----Original Message-----

"Rui Vilao" <rui....@rocketmail.com> wrote in message
news:385a715f.05030...@posting.google.com...

> Hi Mike,
>
> Thanks for your suggestion.
> My original idea to use MSCS was because the nodes that are running

> ftfp server are already part of a MSCS cluster.

> I will try to make some tests with tftp and NLB clustering in our LAB

> (btw we are using WinAgents tftp server).

[Rui Vilao]

Hi,

Many thanks to Mike & Todd for their contribution.
Ok. NLB and MSCS are incompatible...

Anyway I managed to configure the TFTP server included with RIS to
work within my MSCS cluster.

Many thanks again,

Kind Regards,

Rui.