For the purposes of this installation guide I used Java Runtime Version 6 Update 21, Apache Tomcat 6.0.29 and the Microsoft IIS Application Request Routing (ARR) 2.0 module.

You can download the software that I used in this guide from the following locations :

Java JRE Version 6 Update 21
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html

Apache Tomcat (32-bit/64-bit Windows Service Installer)
http://tomcat.apache.org/download-60.cgi

IIS Application Request Routing (ARR) 2.0
http://www.iis.net/download/applicationrequestrouting

Start by installing the Java runtime (JRE) and accept the license agreement.

Then change the installation target folder to C:\Java and then click OK and wait while Java installs

Once you have installed Java you can start installing Tomcat. Double-click the apache-tomcat-6.0.29.exe file to invoke the Apache Tomcat Setup Wizard.

Choose a Custom installation and ensure that the Examples are selected as shown here. You wouldn’t necessarily want to install the sample applications in a production environment but we will be using them in this walkthrough so we need to install them.

Select to install Tomcat in the C:\Tomcat folder as shown here and then click Next.

Leave the default HTTP/1.1 Connector port set to 8080 and choose a password for the admin account.

The setup wizard should find your Java installation automatically.

Click install and wait while Tomcat setup completes. When the installation is complete click Finish.

The Windows Cluster service requires a domain account in order to function correctly so start by creating a new domain account on your domain controller and make it a member of the Domain Users group. The account should also be made a member of the local Administrators group on each of the two nodes.

As mentioned previously, ensure that only one node is powered up at any one time until after the Cluster service has been installed. To begin the cluster installation log on to the first node using a domain account which is a member of the local administrators group and then launch the Cluster Administrator snap-in. Select the option to Create a new cluster from the drop-down and click OK

This will invoke the New Server Cluster Wizard. Click next to continue

On the Cluster name and Domain screen enter the domain name and the name of your cluster for your environment and click Next

On the Select Computer screen enter the name of the machine on which your are installing the Cluster service and click Next

The Cluster Wizard will analyze your setup to determine that the necessary requirements are in place for a successful installation. If it is successful you will see a green bar. In this example we can see that the wizard has flagged up a warning. This is due to the fact that my cluster nodes only have one network interface configured. In a production environment you should have separate network interfaces for the public and private networks but we can safely ignore the warning for the purposes of this test environment. Click Next to continue

In this second part we will install and configure the Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator and then in the third and final part we will build a Windows Server cluster using virtual machines running under Microsoft Virtual PC 2007.

Windows Server 2008 ships with a built-in iSCSI initiator but if you are running Windows Server 2003 you need to download and install it manually. In this walkthrough I am using version 2.08 which you can get here : Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator Version 2.08

The Initiator software needs to be installed on each of the machines that will be required to connect to the iSCSI target in order join the cluster. Double-click the file ‘Initiator-2.08-build3825-x86fre.exe’ to launch the setup. Click Next to continue

Ensure that ‘Initiator service’ and ‘Software initiator’ are both checked and click Next

Accept the license agreement and click Next

The installation wizard copies the files onto your server

When the installation completes click Finish to close the installation wizard.

Now that the Initiator software is installed we need to configure the iSCSI targets. Double-click the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator icon to open the Properties page. On the Discovery tab click Add

In the Add Target Portal dialog box type the IP address of your iSCSI target machine and click OK. Make sure that you leave the default port of 3260 set

Unfortunately, I quickly found out that that Virtual PC doesn’t emulate or provide support for SCSI disks and since SCSI disks are a requirement for a Windows Server 2003 cluster I had to look for an alternative method. I vaguely remembered an old post on a Virtual PC forum where someone had suggested that you could actually build a Windows Server cluster using iSCSI so I decided to give it a go.

A few internet searches led me to a number of iSCSI target software vendors’ web sites and I eventually decided to
use the Starwind free iSCSI target for Microsoft Windows which you can get here : http://www.starwindsoftware.com

System Requirements

In this walkthrough I will demonstrate how you can build a test environment using only virtual machines running under Virtual PC 2007.

A Windows Server cluster requires a domain account for the cluster service to function correctly so we will need to have a domain controller running in addition to the two cluster nodes and the iSCSI server. My test environment consists of 4 virtual machines each running Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition. Each virtual machine has been allocated 256MB of memory and a 4GB virtual hard disk. The iSCSI server has a second 10GB virtual hard disk assigned which is used as shared storage by the cluster.

All the virtual machines have been configured to use the Microsoft Loopback Adapter in Virtual PC as shown below and each machine has a static IP address assigned as follows :

Domain Controller  - 192.168.0.30
iSCSI Server - 192.168.0.70
Cluster Node A - 192.168.0.71
Cluster Node B - 192.168.0.72

The virtual machine which will act as the iSCSI target server has a second virtual hard disk assigned to it.

This additional disk on the iSCSI server is configured as a Basic disk and formatted with NTFS as shown here.

The next step is to install the Starwind iSCSI Target Software. For the purposes of this test I used the free version which you can get here : StarWind Free iSCSI Target.

Continued on the next page

Update : I have also written a guide for installing Tomcat with IIS 7.0 on Windows Server 2008 using the IIS Application Request Routing (ARR) module which you can find here : http://www.iisadmin.co.uk/?p=326

For the purposes of this guide I have used Java Runtime Version 6 Update 13, Apache Tomcat 6.0.18 and the JK 1.2.28 Connector.

You can download the software used in this guide here :

Java Version 6 Update 13
http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp

Apache Tomcat
http://tomcat.apache.org/download-60.cgi

Tomcat Connectors (mod_jk) Downloads
http://tomcat.apache.org/download-connectors.cgi

Start by installing the Java runtime and accept the license agreement.

Then change the installation target folder to C:\Java and then click OK and wait while Java installs

Once you have installed Java you can start installing Tomcat. Double-click the apache-tomcat-6.0.18.exe file to invoke the Apache Tomcat Setup Wizard.

Choose a Custom installation and ensure that the Examples are selected as shown here. You wouldn’t necessarily want to install the sample applications in a production environment but we will be using them in this walkthrough so we need to install them.

Select to install Tomcat in the C:\Tomcat folder as shown here.

Once you have chosen the install location click Next.

Leave the default HTTP/1.1 Connector port set to 8080 and choose a password for the admin account.

The setup wizard should find your Java installation automatically.

Click install and wait while Tomcat setup completes.

When the installation is complete click Finish.

You can use any valid SSL certificate (including a self-signed certificate if you like) but in this example I used a 21-day trial SSL certificate from Thawte which you can get from here : http://www.thawte.com

Before you can use a Thawte test SSL certificate you need to add the Thawte Test CA Root certificate to your server’s ‘Trusted Root Certification Authorities’ certificate store as shown here.

Once you have done this you are now ready to add your certificate to your Tomcat web site. Right-click the web site, click Properties and then click the Directory Security tab. The ‘View Certificate’ button should be greyed-out at this point, indicating that there is no certificate installed on this web site.

Click the Server Certificate button and the Web Server Certificate Wizard should launch.

Click Assign an existing certificate and then click Next.

Click the certificate you wish to use and then click Next.

Leave the SSL port set to the default of 443 and click Next.

Click Finish and the certificate should now be installed.

Update : I have also written a guide for installing Apache Tomcat with IIS 7.0 on Windows Server 2008 which you can find here : http://www.iisadmin.co.uk/?p=72

64-bit Update : I finally got around to testing this installation using Windows Server 2003 x64 Standard Edition and it worked OK. If you are using a 64-bit platform you need to ensure that you download the 64-bit Java JRE, the 64-bit version of Tomcat (I used the installer not the ZIP package) and the win64 Tomcat Connector.

For the purposes of this guide I have used Java Runtime Version 6 Update 7, Apache Tomcat 6.0.18 and the JK 1.2.26 Connector.

You can download the software used in this guide here :

Java Version 6 Update 7
http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp

Apache Tomcat
http://tomcat.apache.org/download-60.cgi

Tomcat Connectors (mod_jk) Downloads
http://tomcat.apache.org/download-connectors.cgi

Start by installing the Java runtime and accept the license agreement.

Then change the installation target folder to C:\Java and then click OK and wait while Java installs

Once you have installed Java you can start installing Tomcat. Double-click the apache-tomcat-6.0.18.exe file to invoke the Apache Tomcat Setup Wizard.

Choose a Custom installation and ensure that the Examples are selected as shown here. You wouldn’t necessarily want to install the sample applications in a production environment but we will be using them in this walkthrough so we need to install them.

Select to install Tomcat in the C:\Tomcat folder as shown here.

Leave the default HTTP/1.1 Connector port set to 8080 and choose a password for the admin account.

The setup wizard should find your Java installation automatically.

Click install and wait while Tomcat setup completes.

When the installation is complete click Finish.

The service failed to start again and the same entry appeared in the System event log.

I delved a bit deeper and discovered that the Tomcat service writes to a log file called jakarta_service_YYYYMMDD.log, so I looked in this file and saw the following entry : [994 prunsrv.c] [error] Failed creating java C:\Java\bin\client\jvm.dll

As you can see the error in the log file seemed to suggest that there was a problem with the file jvm.dll in the C:\Java\bin\client folder. I looked in that folder and I could see that the file was already there - so why should Tomcat be throwing an error suggesting there was a problem creating the file ?

Thinking I was perhaps facing a permissions issue I reached for a copy of Sysinternals Process Monitor and fired up a trace on the server whilst trying once more to start the Tomcat service. What I found was quite interesting.

The Tomcat service (tomcat6.exe) seemed to be able to find the jvm.dll file OK but then it appeared to be looking for a file called MSVCR71.DLL and, as you can see highlighted in the screen capture below, it wasn’t able to locate this file in any of the folders in which it was searching. Immediately following this you can see the tomcat6.exe process start writing to its own log file (jakarta_service_20080826.log) recording the error message shown above.

Since Tomcat was unable to find this file I decided to see if I could. I searched the whole of the C drive on the server and actually found the MSVCR71.DLL file in the locations shown here.

As you can see the file was actually found on my server - just not in any of the locations in which Tomcat was looking. The solution was simple. Once I had copied MSVCR71.DLL to the C:\Java\bin\client folder the Tomcat service started successfully.

You can get the Sysinternals free utilities here : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx

Logging Worker Process Recycling Events in IIS 6.0 (IIS 6.0)

The online documentation states that by default IIS does not log worker process recycling events. However, this is not entirely accurate. If you execute the following command against an unmodified installation of IIS 6.0 you should see that it returns the value shown below :

cscript %SYSTEMDRIVE%\inetpub\adminscripts\adsutil.vbs get w3svc/AppPools/LogEventOnRecycle

What this means is that if you have an application pool (say for example the DefaultAppPool) which was created with the default values in place, then that application pool will be recycled every 1740 minutes after the first request is made. When that event occurs it will in fact be recorded in the System event log as shown below. If you also schedule application pool recycles then those events will also be logged.

However, if an application pool is manually recycled or has its configuration altered in some way by an administrator then these events will not be logged if you have the default LogEventOnRecycle metabase property in place. This is one of those circumstances where I personally feel that the default setup value is not the best choice. I would rather have everything that affects my application pools logged so that I have a clearer picture of what is happening on my web servers. At the very least I would rather be informed about an unexpected application pool recycle than one which I have already scheduled and would therefore be likely to know about.

So, if you want to enable logging of all application pool recycling events you need to issue the following command :

cscript %SYSTEMDRIVE%\inetpub\adminscripts\adsutil.vbs Set w3svc/AppPools/LogEventOnRecycle 255

Once you have done this you will start to see additional events related to application pool recycling being logged to the System event log. For example, if a configuration change is made to a specific application pool then you will see event ID 1080 being logged as shown here.

And if an administrator manually recycles an application pool then that event will also be captured. The online documentation contains a list of all the application pool recycle event ID’s which you can expect to see.

However, there are a few limitations which I think are worthy of comment. Firstly, it would be nice to see the actual user ID of the person who made the change being captured in the event log. And secondly, it appears that if instead of recycling an application pool an administrator simply stops and re-starts it, then these actions are not captured at all. I think this is a pretty serious oversight as it allows someone to circumvent the auditing process, which is never a good thing.

Having said this I still feel that there is a real benefit to be gained from enabling the logging of all application pool recycle events and I would recommend that you do this on all production or mission critical systems.

I installed IIS on a newly installed 64-bit Windows 2003 R2 server and needed to configure it to support Asp.Net 1.1 applications. In order to do this I had to configure IIS to run in 32-bit mode as documented in this KB article How to switch between the 32-bit versions of ASP.NET 1.1 and the 64-bit version of ASP.NET 2.0 on a 64-bit version of Windows.

Once I had done this I went back into the Properties of the Default Web Site and I noticed that the ASP.Net tab seemed to have mysteriously vanished. After closing and re-opening and then checking the MMC a few times I still couldn’t find the ASP.Net tab. So I followed the same procedure on another 64-bit Windows 2003 server and got the same results - the Asp.Net tab disappeared after I configured the Enable32bitAppOnWin64 metabase property.

If you’ve got a 64-bit server you can test this out for yourself by following these steps.

Install IIS 6.0 on the server and then open the Properties of the Default Web Site. You should see the Asp.Net tab as shown here

If you now run the following command at this point :

cscript %SYSTEMDRIVE%\inetpub\adminscripts\adsutil.vbs get W3SVC/AppPools/Enable32bitAppOnWin64

you should see that it returns a value of false as shown below, which shows that IIS is currently running in 64-bit mode.

In order to configure IIS to run in 32-bit mode you need to execute this command :

cscript %SYSTEMDRIVE%\inetpub\adminscripts\adsutil.vbs SET W3SVC/AppPools/Enable32bitAppOnWin64 1

You should now see that it returns a value of True as shown here. This means that IIS is now running in 32-bit mode on your server.

If you then go back to look at the properties of the Default Web Site you will see that the ASP.Net tab has gone.

I have to admit that this had me puzzled at first until I found a reference to this KB article - The “ASP.NET” tab of IIS Manager does not appear when you retrieve the properties for a virtual directory in IIS Manager

Apparently, this anomaly is due to the fact that the 32-bit version of IIS Manager is incompatible with 64-bit machines running Asp.Net

What this means in practical terms is that if you have a 64-bit server running IIS in 32-bit mode and you need to change the version of the .Net framework on a particular web site then you need to use the ASP.NET IIS Registration Tool (Aspnet_regiis.exe) to make those changes.

The use of this tool does present its own unique challenges which I’ll cover in a future post.