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Ensuring a successful FAST Search Server 2010 installation

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While we get this information cleaned-up, fully-documented, and stored in a more “formal” location (e.g. https://support.microsoft.com), here are some initial Best Practices the FAST Technical Support and Escalation Teams have been successful with in terms of resolving various FAST Search Server 2010 issues specific to various networking issues.

 

1. Disable TCP Chimney:

https://support.microsoft.com/kb/951037

“Information about the TCP Chimney Offload, Receive Side Scaling, and Network Direct Memory Access features in Windows Server 2008”

To disable TCP Chimney Offload, follow these steps:

Use administrative credentials to open a command prompt.

At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:

netsh int tcp set global chimney=disabled

 

References:

https://support.microsoft.com/kb/945977

“Some problems occur after installing Windows Server 2003 SP2”

Note: While the above article discusses Windows Server 2003 SP2, the TCP Chimney / Scalable Networking Pack information is still applicable to Windows Server 2008 SP2/R2.

https://support.microsoft.com/kb/942861

“Error message when an application connects to SQL Server on a server that is running Windows Server 2003: ‘General Network error,’ ‘Communication link failure,’ or ‘A transport-level error’ ”

https://blogs.msdn.com/b/scottos/archive/2010/09/10/leave-the-chimney-for-santa-claus-not-for-fast-search-server-2010.aspx

 

2. Ensure all of the “offload” settings on the network adapter’s driver are set to Disabled:

3. Validate that IPSEC is behaving properly:

https://blogs.msdn.com/b/scottos/archive/2010/07/16/we-need-to-talk-aka-it-s-not-me-it-s-you.aspx

Comments

  • Anonymous
    September 29, 2010
    Hi, I am also getting same king of problem when I am installing Linux Server into my system..

  • Anonymous
    September 29, 2010
    @Webhostingruchi Thanks for your comment; can you elaborate a bit further?  I'm not sure I fully grasp the type of issue you're encountering. Regards, Scott Oseychik

  • Anonymous
    July 17, 2011
    Hi Scott, in your note on disabling the TCP Chimney you said the referenced article is applicable to Windows 2008 as well. Does the other error also happen on Windows 2008 (Error message when an application connects to SQL Server on a server that is running Windows Server 2003: ‘General Network error,’ ‘Communication link failure,’ or ‘A transport-level error’ ”) and is the KB you list relevant as well? Thanks for providing these tips!

  • Anonymous
    July 17, 2011
    Hi Rich, In my personal opinion (as well as plenty of experience with various customers), disabling TCP Chimney will resolve a wide swath of network-related anomolies.  I recommend following the "disable" sections of support.microsoft.com/.../951037 ... hope this helps! Regards, Scott Oseychik

  • Anonymous
    September 21, 2011
    The comment has been removed