Windows Server 2008: IPV4 Weak Host Configuration

It is very common to have a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) farm that includes mutliple web applications, each having its own host name and ip address.

In fact, when SSL certificates are installed on the web server directly (i.e. not offloaded to the hardware load balancer), then there is a requirement to assign unique ip addresses for each web application in order to ensure that the web site bindings (ip address + host name + port) remain unique on the web server.

When a web server is multihomed like this, it is very important to consider and configure the approprate strong or weak host model, in order to ensure that the web server will behave properly. If this configuration is neglected or set incorrectly, then it will cause Windows services to fail, IP packets to be disgarded, and the web server to "break."

Here is an excellent article describing the strong and week host models:

TechNet: The Cable Guy: Strong and Weak Host Models by Joseph Davies
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2007.09.cableguy.aspx

Returning to the subject of the multihomed MOSS web server; here are steps that may be followed to configure the IPV4 interface as "weak":

1. netsh interface ipv4 show interface
2. See the IDX number
3. netsh interface ipv4 set interface [IDX number] weakhostsend=enabled
4. netsh interface ipv4 set interface [IDX number] weakhostreceive=enabled