Unknown Network
Hi I am using 2 NICs on a Dell PE 1850 with the latest drivers and Windows Server 200 Standard (SP2). When I reboot the server, one of the NICs shows "Unidentified Network" and the other shows "network" but with limited connectivity". When I disable then re-enable the second NIC then the "unidentified network" fixes itself and displays "mydomain.com" and the NIC I disabled then re-enabled also regains full activity. I can't be remembering to disble and re-enable the NIC after a reboot, it fixes the problem but it's not a permanent solution. Does anyone have a fix for this? Thanks Paul
July 2nd, 2009 1:50pm

Not really enough info. Why two NICs? What are the NICs connected to? How are they configured? If the machine is domain joined, one network should show as a domain network. What is the other NIC connected to? Dos it have a default gateway set on it?Bill
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July 3rd, 2009 4:00am

Ok, its a web server in a domain, one NIC is set up as the public interface where all the web traffic happens, the second NIC is a management interface where all of the domain traffic happens. Obviously you can only have one default gateway, this is set on the public interface so any IP that comes in from the world has a route back out. There is no default gateway on the management NIC, only static routes. Does this explain it a little better? Thanks Paul
July 10th, 2009 7:34pm

Thanks. I have had this sort of problem and never really got to the bottom of it. In your case, the "private" NIC should be identified as a domain network and the other as a public network. All I can really tell you is that this is done by a process called "Network Location Awareness" which works with firewall settings and group policy settings.Bill
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July 11th, 2009 4:13am

This is driving me crazy... I have rebuilt 2 servers and they both have exactly the same issue... NIC1 handles all the domain traffic and has static routes NIC2 handles the Web traffic and has a default gateway. The only way I can get it to work is having both NICs enabled, then disabling then re-enabling NIC2, at which point NIC1 then detects the domain by itself without having to touch it. How can disabling/re-enabling NIC2 affect the status of NIC1? My main issue is when the servers reboots I have to fiddle about to get it to work which is pretty poor. Anyone got any ideas what is happening here? NLA sounds feasible but is it configurable? Thanks Paul
July 14th, 2009 6:05pm

As I said earlier, I never got to the bottom of the problem. I was routing to machines on a virtual network, so I ran RRAS in a vm, not on the host server. I believe that you have to modify the filewall profiles. Perhaps someone who has done it will give you a lead.Bill
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July 15th, 2009 4:07am

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