[wds] I'm having problems getting WDS to Multicast in the field.

[rkoufii]

Hello! I am on the technology team in a K-12 school district. Here is a little backlground information on our organization:

 

We have 6 sites with 95% of our servers at our high school.

We are a flat 10. network.

We use all 3COM 4400 switches and one 3COM 4950 at the high school - IGMP snooping is enable.

Our firewall is a SonicWall NSA 3500.

Our firewall is our default Gateway.

 

I am trying to get WDS to multicast properly. When I set WDS up in a test environment, multicasting works like a charm! My test environment consists of a 3COM 4400 switch, 2 workstations, 1 server running 2008 R2 (Primary Domain Controller, DHCP and WDS installed). When I try to run it off our network though, it locks up.

 

On our live network, WDS is installed on a Server 2007 SP2 box which is also our PDC and DHCP server. When I try to multicast, WDS will accept the clients (they show up in the multicast window), but when the image is sent, they just sit there like they are not receiving the transmission. I should note that unicast works fine.

 

I'm trying to narrow down the problem... here are some possible issues:

#1 - In my test environment, the Sonic Wall was not an issue

#2 - In my test environment I was running Server2008 R2, on the REAL network I am running Server2007 R2

#3 - In my test environment, I am connected directly to the switch. In reality, our school buildings are connected through town fibre. Could there be some piece of equipment in-between buildings that I don't have control over that is causing the problem.

 

Has anyone had similar issues? Anyone have any ideas I can try?

[jsnetman]

Server 2007? are you sure as I have never heard of this. But I guess your problem is in the switch configurations. If there is a setting to allow multicast set it to on on all switches.

 

Just seen this on a technet post

 

If a namespace is registered with that connection string, the image is available for multicast download. If a namespace is not registered with that connection string (as would be the case if a. you were using a newer WDS Client against an older server or b. the Admin has not enabled multicast for the selected image), the image is not available for multicast download. The client falls back to SMB.

Edited April 21, 2010 by jsnetman

[chazzy2501]

I've had this problem in my 3com network (multicast ghost), You will need to set the brodcast storm protection settings on all of the switches in the chain from your WDS server to the clients.

[rkoufii]

Currently Broadcast Storm Control is set to ENABLED with a packet threshold in Packets Per Second of 3000 on all switches between the WDS server and client. Is this correct? Any other ideas? Thanks!!!! Edited April 26, 2010 by rkoufii

[rkoufii]

Ok.... got a chance to play around with WDS a little more today. I have WDS installed on 2 boxes now (of course only one is enabled at a time).

 

On our server #6 the WDS roll is enabled, that is it.

When we try to multi cast, the clients never show up in the multicast, they just start automatically as if in unicast.

Unicast works fine.

 

On our server #10 the WDS roll is enabled, but this server is also our Primary Domain Controller, DHCP and DNS.

When we try to multi cast, the clients show up in the multicast and wait until I initiate the cast, but once I do this, they just sit at 0% and nothing is transfered.

Unicast works fine.

 

All of our servers are plugged into our 3COM 4950 switch. I took a laptop to be imaged down and plugged it directly into that 4950 switch and had the same reults as mentioned above. That seems to narrow it down to either how the servers are set up with WDS or the 3COM 4950. I'm just not sure what to try now. Any ideas?

[rkoufii]

I should also mention that server #6 is running MS Server2008 R2 and server #10 is running MS Server 2008.

[rkoufii]

Well, I got WDS working a little bit better, by accident... WDS is installed on our WSERVER6. When I would start a multicast, client PC's would not wait for the start command and they would take off prematurely. I took a break from WDS and decided to install SharePoint 2010 on WSERVER6 just to play around with it. After installing SharePoint (or some component it installed), WDS will now wait for clients when I multicast. Problem still remains, once I start the multicast, the clients just sit at 0% and nothing is transfered. This development is leading me towards a server configuration problem and not an issue with the network, but I still can't pin-point the problem. Any suggestions?

[rkoufii]

Finally got WDS multicast working on our system. Our server was run Symantec Antivirus... uninstalled and WDS multicasting works like a charm!