- Internet Information Services Overview
- Clustering the World Wide Web Service
- Prerequisites
- Installing the Virtual WWW Server
- Synchronizing the Nodes
- Conclusion
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Installing the Virtual WWW Server
To install the virtual WWW server, complete the following steps:
Open the Cluster Administrator and select the disk group you wish to use for the virtual web server. Right-click on the disk group and select New, Resource. Type in the name you would like to use for the TCP/IP resource, along with a description. Under Resource Type, select IP Address and click Next.
The next screen is the Possible Owners dialog box. By default, all nodes within the cluster are listed under possible owners. If there are any nodes that you do not want to host the resource in the event of a failure, click on that node and select Remove to have it removed from the list. Click Next to continue.
In the Dependency dialog box, select the disk resource that is listed. In reality, the IP address is not dependent upon the disk, but you do want to bring the IP address online if the disk is not available, so making the IP address dependent upon the disk is a valid option. Click on the disk and select Add to have it added to the dependency list. Click Next to continue.
The next screen allows you to assign an IP address to this resource (which makes sense seeing that it is an IP address resource.) Type in the IP address you wish to use for your virtual web server. This address will be bound to the network card automatically as soon as the resource is brought online. It is not necessary to manually add it to the network configuration. The subnet will be populated automatically.
Make sure the Public Connection is the network that is selected, for advertising an IP address on the private network connection will not make much sense. The Enable NetBIOS option allows the NetBIOS naming to be used for the address. If you are running this web server to host an internal application, and you need to access the server through a name resolved by WINS, then you should check this option, otherwise, clear the box and select Finish to complete the IP address configuration.
Once the configuration is complete, right-click on the resource and select Bring Online to start the IP address resource. You should be able to "ping" this address from another workstation once it is brought online.
As a next step, before creating the web server resource, open the Internet Service Manager console. You will find this by choosing Start, Programs, then Administrative Tools. In the Internet Service Manager, right-click on the computer icon and select New, Website from the menu. This will start the New Website wizard.
At the website creation wizard startup screen, select Next to continue.
In the Website Description dialog box, type the Name of the site you are creating. This name is only used for descriptive purposes.
The next screen asks for the IP address and Port Settings of the site you are creating. Type in the IP address that you assigned to the IP address resource within the Cluster Administrator. If you choose to use a Host Header for your site, you can enter that here. If you do not use host headers, leave this field blank. Select Next to continue.
In the Website Home Directory dialog box, type in the path to the Web Directory you created in Windows Explorer for the website. This directory must be located on the shared disk array.
The next screen allows you to set Permissions on the web directory. If you do not require special permissions for your web directory, leave the default and select Next to continue. If you would like to modify the default permissions, feel free to do so.
The final screen notifies you that you have created the virtual website. This does not however indicate that you have successfully created a clustered website, you have simply configured Internet Information Services on one machine to respond to requests.
Once the virtual web server is created within the Internet Service Manager, open Cluster Administrator once again. Right-click on the disk group that contains the IP address resource you created and select New, Resource. In the New Resource dialog box, type the Name you would like to assign to the virtual web server, a Description for the server and a Resource Type of IIS Server Instance. Click Next to continue.
In the Possible Owner dialog box, select any nodes that you do not want to host the virtual web server in the event of a failure. Click Next to continue.
In the Dependency dialog box, select the Disk Resource and the IP Address Resource and select Add to add the resources to the resource dependency list. Select Next to continue.
Next, select www from the parameters screen and from the drop down list, select the virtual web server that corresponds to the virtual web server you created in the Internet Services Manager application. Click Finish to complete the installation of the virtual web server.
Right-click on the IIS Resource and select Bring Online to make sure the resource starts correctly.