Connection Errors When Querying Multiple Systems from Windows 2003 Server

Problem

When attempting to query multiple systems, you may only be able to get a valid status/connection for 3-6 systems at a time. If you go back and refresh a few of the other failed systems, they will return successfully.

Possible solution and background

If you examine a network capture during these times you may notice that only 3-6 name requests actually leave your host system and this is the start of the problem. The problem can be duplicated outside of Privileged Identity by creating a series of named pipe connections (via scripts) and launching them in parallel, although due to the speed of this process, the problem will not appear as severe as it does when connections are initiated by Privileged Identity. A potential resolution can be to update certain networking components. The problem does not affect Windows Server 2008 or later systems.

 

Modifying network components of a system can have an adverse affect on its ability to function in the network or provide network resources.

The following steps install the IPv6 component of Windows networking on a Windows 2003 or Windows XP system. The problem is that the included IPv4 DNS client is single threaded and is becoming overwhelmed while IPv6 is multi-threaded.

Once the updated protocol is installed, it can then be unbound (not uninstalled) from any and all adapters.

No further steps are necessary than to install IPv6.

1. Open the properties of any network connection on the server.
2. Click the Install button
3. Select Protocol then click Add
4. Select Microsoft TCP/IP version 6
5. OK all dialogs

IPv6 has now been installed on your system. Networking should begin behaving better. A possible additional step if you will not be using IPv6 is not unbind (uncheck) the network protocol from the list, but do not uninstall it.