Server 2003 connection cap?

[Tripredacus]

I've got a computer that has Windows Server 2003 Standard installed on it. It is also my WDS Server (testing) and it seems to have a limit of having 4 open connections to it. I am not sure why it is acting this way so maybe one of you could tell me some things to try.

Specs: 3.2GHz Pentium D, 1GB RAM. Gigabit NIC (CNET) and Netgear 24 port Gigabit switch.

I set up 8 computers and had them all boot to the network (loads a WinPE image) which all loaded at once in the normal amount of time.

I start having them apply an image (WIM) and after the 3rd one, the 4th PC had a problem and I had to reboot it. I set the 5th one to start downloading the image. All are imaging normally (albeit slower than if I did one). PCs 7 and 8 were already booted to the network, but 6 had a problem and I rebooted it. When it went to boot to the network, it sat at the "loading files" screen until after the other 4 were imaged. Also, I couldn't get any more than 4 to start imaging (they gave network errors). Basically here was the result at one point:

PC1: imaging

PC2: imaging

PC3: imaging

PC4: network error (1231) and (85)

PC5: imaging

PC6: loading PE files

PC7: booted into PE

PC8: booted into PE

Now I know that the WDS doesn't actually manage the imaging at all, so I don't know if this is because of the amount of RAM, a limitation of Standard, or some setting I can change to allow more connections.

In addition, after those 4 finished and were shut down, the remaining four were set to be imaged and worked fine, even the one that got the network errors.

[cluberti]

Two questions spring to mind immediately - assuming you're running SP2 on that 2003 box, do you have 947775 installed? Also, are you multicasting images or just unicasting?

EDIT: Actually, this is a 2003 server, so you don't have a multicast option (this is a 2008-only option). So, you may be indeed hitting some unicast limitation of the NIC. Is there any reason you don't have a 2008 box for WDS deployment (or a few, including some running the transport server role)?

[nmX.Memnoch]

Since the components appear to be a "standard PC" type machine I would also ask what the drive subsystem is in the WDS box.

[Tripredacus]

Two questions spring to mind immediately - assuming you're running SP2 on that 2003 box, do you have 947775 installed? Also, are you multicasting images or just unicasting?

EDIT: Actually, this is a 2003 server, so you don't have a multicast option (this is a 2008-only option). So, you may be indeed hitting some unicast limitation of the NIC. Is there any reason you don't have a 2008 box for WDS deployment (or a few, including some running the transport server role)?

We are currently testing WDS on this computer, and I had started using it before 2008 was made available to us. We now have it and are also testing that separately (or so I am told). The plan is to have a REAL server running 2008 that will be running WDS at some point in the future. I am using the version of WDS that comes with 2008 so the transition will be easy once we get that thing running.

So in essense I am running 4 unicast connections from the same file? When our MS guy came to visit, I was disappointed to learn that WDS doesn't manage anything... It would be nice if they gave it some management capabilities in a future version.

Since the components appear to be a "standard PC" type machine I would also ask what the drive subsystem is in the WDS box.

It has 1 80GB SATA HDD as the OS and 1 160GB SATA HDD as the fileshare.

[cluberti]

So in essense I am running 4 unicast connections from the same file? When our MS guy came to visit, I was disappointed to learn that WDS doesn't manage anything... It would be nice if they gave it some management capabilities in a future version.

2008 has some very basic event log parsing, which can be used to report, but nothing like other utilities like WSUS or SCOM. And yes, you're currently unicasting the WIM 4 times .

I'd suggest replacing that test box OS with a straight 2008 install, and perhaps a transport server box as well, and switch to multicasting if you've got the network equipment to handle multicasting in your environment.

[Tripredacus]

I think the switch I'm using is unmanaged. It is a Netgear ProSafe 24 Port Gigabit Switch, model JGS524. There is another server in the environ, and it is also a 2003 Server Standard. Its primary function is to act as DHCP, as I set this up the same as the tutorial I wrote a while back in the WinPE forum. It isn't anything close to being reliable, which is why it only does DHCP. It was our old Ghost server and we kept it around because it locks up when you try to copy anything off of it in large numbers. It also has a RAID array (i forget which number... the one that takes multiple drives and creates one volume) but its currently missing about 1/4 of a TB because at least one drive had fallen off the array. I am not sure if this other computer is capable of being a "transport server" as I am not entirely certain what that entails.

I can't make any changes to this environ ATM because I am deploying an image to machines we can't otherwise image.... Ones with those garbage software controlled by the BIOS Broadcom 57 NICs that aren't compatible with the version of Ghost we use.... When that order is finished then I will try to get my hands on a PC to put 2k8 on.