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MCMS 2002 - Clustering FAQ - Table of Contents

Affinity
Forms authentication keys not synchonized

Topic: Affinity

Is affinity ('single') required in a MCMS cluster?

Answer

This is only required if you are accessing the entire cluster with the Site Manger. If you only hit one of the cluster members with the Site Manager client, then you will be fine.

 
MCMS does not require affinity for forms authentication. As long as the encryption keys are all synchronized, then any of the servers in the cluster can handle an authentication ticket generated by other servers in the cluster.
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Topic: Forms authentication keys not synchonized

I have setup an MCMS cluster using two MCMS server machines. When accessing each server separately, everything is fine. However, when accessing the cluster I see broken images.

The MCMS encryption keys are synchronized what did I miss?

Answer

Besides the MCMS encryption key, you also have to ensure that the ASP.NET encryption keys used to encrypt the authentication cookies are synchornized.

By default, these encryption keys are set to autogenerate. This will cause each machine to have a different encryption key. Therefore, only the machine that generated the encryption key will be able to decrypt the data.

To resolve this you need to follow the instruction in this article:

312906 - HOW TO: Create Keys by Using Visual C# .NET for Use in Forms Authentication

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