Server 2003 - Anyone know how to delay TCPIP initilization

[spyordie007]

I've got 6 Dell PowerEdge 1850 servers running Server 2003. The problem is that the servers' network stack is coming up before the network interface (Intel Pro/1000 MT) and is causing some services to choke on boot-up.

Anyone know how to delay Windows from bringing up the stack until the interface is up? A couple seconds should be enough to get around this problem.

-Erik

 

[NogginBoink]

Sounds to me like that's solving the wrong problem.

I'd suggest you work on this with Dell.

BTW... are you sure you've diagnosed the problem correctly?

 

[spyordie007]

Sounds to me like that's solving the wrong problem.

Why do you say that?

The reason I think this is an issue with the interface taking as long as it does to come up is because I'll see services that require network connectivity fail before the physical interface finishes coming up (as per the event log).

For example our Live Communication Server service fails with 2 errors, first because it cant bind to a network interface and second because a DC cannot be contacted; I've even tried altering the dependancies of that service so it waits a little longer but that's still not quite long enough. However if I delay that service 10 seconds or so it starts as expected (for a temporary fix I've got servany launching a batch script that waits and than starts the LCS service).

Services on the other servers exibit similar behaviors.

If I cant drum up other steps to take I'll definetly follow-up with Dell. The other avenue I'm working from is to alter the port configuration on our Cisco switches to speed up the link negotiation; though I would prefer to not run a differant switch port configuration for just these servers (other server models work fine).

Thanks for the response,

-Erik

 

[nweaver]

conf t
int <int name here...faste0/1>
spanning-t portf
end
write

That is the step to turn spanning tree portfast on. That makes the port go from an initial state of "Listening" to "Forwarding", which may help. If the port is Orange when the server first boots up, for 15-20 seconds, then try that.