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SharePoint Tidbit - What WFE am I connected to

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Hello All

Recently got into a discussion around how to figure out which WFE a user is connected to when you have 'Sticky sessions' disabled as is recommended in SharePoint 2016.  Here are some choices that I came up with.

  1. We could add a response header (See Here) this would require that we use a sniffer on the client to capture the traffic so it might not be the most functional choice.
  2. Add HTML code to the MasterPage, Microsoft Best Practice suggests that you should stay away from editing your Master Page if at all possible.
  3. Another possibility is to use the SharePoint Developer Dashboard, this tool presents a lot of information (See here for more details) on a connection by connection basis.  One of the properties is the server name 😊  You can enable this tool by running the following code on any SharePoint server in a PowerShell window.
 $d = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebService]::ContentService.DeveloperDashboardSettings
$d.DisplayLevel = 'On'
$d.TraceEnabled = $true
$d.Update()

Once done with your troubleshooting it is recommended that you turn it off by running the following code on your SharePoint Server.

 $d = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebService]::ContentService.DeveloperDashboardSettings
$d.DisplayLevel = 'Off'
$d.Update()

As you can see from this screenshot in my test environment the tool can show you which WFE your connected for each connection.

Pax

Comments

  • Anonymous
    November 21, 2017
    Chris,Is there a load balancer used in this scenario?Thanks.
    • Anonymous
      November 21, 2017
      Yes, the customer is using an F5 and has 5 WFE with no stickysession so we can't rely on a connection going to the same server when we perform a refresh in the browser