Managing servers

Adding a server to IPF

Steps are provided in the portal installation guide.

Removing a server from IPF

You can remove a server from IPF only when it is not part of any farm.

Removing a server from IPF removes the IPF Control Service and the server entry from the IPF Control Database. This does not run asynchronously and is performed immediately.

You cannot remove the last server from IPF using the Farm Manager. Instead, you must use the IPF Installer.

Adding a server to a farm

This action is hot safe.

This updates the server in the IPFControl database to indicate it is in the farm, sets the server status to Resuming, and locks the record.

Adding a server to the farm runs asynchronously. The Deploy_ServerToFarm and Deploy_ServerToLoadBalancer jobs are created to complete adding the server to the farm.

If the load balancer is not Microsoft NLB, then the farm job task is set to Manual. You must mark the job as complete when the load balancer has been manually updated.

When complete, the record is unlocked and the status is set to Active. The end result is that the server is part of the farm, all IPFinstances running in the farm have been created, and the load balancer has been updated.

Removing a server from a farm

This action is hot safe.

If server status is Active, this updates the server in the IPFControl Database, sets the status to Suspending, and locks the record. Removing the server runs asynchronously. The Drain_ServerFromLoadBalancer, Monitor_SessionsForServer, Retract_ServerFromLoadBalancer, and Retract_ServerFromFarm jobs are created to complete removing the server from the farm.

If server status is Idle, this updates the server in the IPFControl Database to lock the record. Removing the server runs asynchronously. The Retract_ServerFromFarm is created to complete removing the server from the farm.

If the load balancer is unsupported, then the tasks in the Drain and Retract Load Balancer farm jobs will have a status of Manual. You must mark the jobs as complete when the load balancer has been manually updated.

You can select the server and click Force Server Idle to move things along, even when the count of sessions has not reached 0. However, doing this is not hot safe.

The end result is that the load balancer no longer includes this server, all IPFinstances have been removed, and the server is no longer part of the farm.

Making a server idle

This action is hot safe.

This action allows you to gracefully take down the server for maintenance. Existing sessions must end normally. The server status is set to Suspending and the record is locked.

This process runs asynchronously, as the load balancer needs to be updated to take the server out of rotation. Three jobs are created: Drain_ServerFromLoadBalancer, Monitor_SessionsForServer, and Retract_ServerFromLoadBalancer.

Drain_ServerFromLoadBalancer marks the server in the load balancer to not accept new connections but to continue accepting requests.

Monitor_SessionsForServer monitors for existing sessions on the server. The Runner field is updated with information about the number of sessions still active. When the count reaches 0, the job completes.

Retract_ServerFromLoadBalancer removes the server from the load balancer.

After all jobs are complete, the server status is updated to Idle and the record is unlocked.

If necessary, you can force a server to be idle instead of waiting for all sessions to end gracefully. You can monitor sessions and wait until the desired level before clicking Force Server Idle. At this point, you can remove the server from the farm.

Forcing a server idle

This action is not hot safe.

This action takes the server down immediately. Server status is set to Suspending and the record is locked.

Any existing Drain_ServerFromLoadBalancer or Monitor_SessionsForServer jobs for this server are marked as complete.

This process runs asynchronously, as the load balancer needs to be updated to take the server out of rotation.

Retract_ServerFromLoadBalancer is created, which removes the server from the load balancer. This job may already exist from a previous Make Server Idle request.

After the job completes, the server status is updated to idle and the record is unlocked. At this point, you can remove the server from the farm.

Making a server active

This action is hot safe.

This action is used to reactivate a server after maintenance.

Select the server to resume; the status is set to Resuming and the record is locked.

Resuming the server runs asynchronously, as the load balancer needs to be updated to add the server back into the rotation. The Deploy_ServerToLoadBalancer job is created to add the server back into the load balancer.

The end result is that the server status is updated to Active and the record is unlocked when the load balancer has been updated.

Checking server status

Server status is displayed in the right pane. These are the possible statuses:

Rebuilding a server

If you know or suspect that something is wrong with an IIS server, for example, if the site binding was accidentally deleted or if .dll files in the inetpub directory were deleted, you can click this button to rebuild the server. All files created in inetpub and all sites and application pools created in IIS for the server are deleted and then re-created.

The Rebuild Server option is available when a server is idle.