Microsoft KB Archive/258699

= Client sessions may be lost while accessing a Web Farm program in Windows NT Server 4.0 and Window 2000 Advanced Server =

Article ID: 258699

Article Last Modified on 2/28/2007

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
 * Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Enterprise Edition

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This article was previously published under Q258699



SYMPTOMS
If a Web site depends on the ASP Session Object or some other state being stored on the Web server, clients of a Web farm program may experience problems. For example, sessions being &quot;lost&quot; between requests.



CAUSE
This issue can occur if a client request is serviced by a server that does not have the client's session-state information.



RESOLUTION
The Request Forwarding feature of Application Center 2000 addresses this behavior. For more information about Application Center 2000, please refer to the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/ApplicationCenter

To resolve this issue, use any of the following methods:
 * Design the Web site program to store its state on the client.
 * Store the session state on a central server-side store, like a database.
 * Design the client program to store session data in a cookie, embed it in the URL or manually (without Commerce Server) store the session data in a database.
 * Use the &quot;Affinity&quot; or &quot;Sticky Sessions&quot; feature if you are using a Load Balancing service to cluster the Web servers (such as Microsoft Windows Load Balancing Service (WLBS) called Network Load Balancing (NLB) in Windows 2000) so that a client is always serviced by the same server. Please note that clients behind a farm of proxy servers cannot take advantage of the &quot;Affinity&quot; feature of WLBS/NLB when the external IP addresses used by the proxy servers span more than one 'class C' network ID. Note that AOL uses this type of proxy Web farms.



MORE INFORMATION
For additional information:

Maintaining Session State on Your Web Farm:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/periodic/period99/session.htm

Keywords: kbnetwork kbnlb kbprb KB258699

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