TCP Chimney Causing Problem
It has come to my knowledge that the new feature of network protocol offload capability which Microsoft introduce in Windows Server 2003 causes problem including the following:
- 1. If it is an Exchange server, Exchange Queues become clogged in the MAPI delivery queue. Messages get stuck in this queue and cannot be delivered properly.
- 2. ActiveSync may not work on the Exchange Server 2003.
- 3. For the IIS server, browsing the Public and/or Default Website in IIS results in error “Page cannot be displayed”.
- 4. Non-Paged Pool (KERNEL) memory becomes exhausted.
- 5. For a printer server, the printing job may be partially missing.
- 6. For a SQL server, if you have an application that connects to SQL Server by using TCP/IP, you may intermittently receive one of the following error messages:
- Error message 1:
[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][DBNETLIB] General Network error. Check your network documentation- Error message 2:
ERROR [08S01] [Microsoft][SQL Native Client]Communication link failure- Error message 3:
System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: A transport-level error has occurred when sending the request to the server. (provider: TCP Provider, error: 0 - An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.)
This new option on Windows Server 2003 is enabled once you apply Service Pack 2. To have this option disabled, issue the following command:
- Netsh int ip set chimney DISABLED
So, should you face any of the above problem/symptom, you might want to use Network Shell command as mentioned. On top of that, this work-around maybe useful as well:
- From Regedit under this hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters
- ‘EnableTCPChimney’
Type: REG_DWORD
Values: 1 (enabled) 0 (disabled) - ‘EnableRSS’
Type: REG_DWORD
Values: 1 (enabled) 0 (disabled) - ‘EnableTCPA’
Type: REG_DWORD
Values: 1 (enabled) 0 (disabled)
For more info, refer to MS KB 945977