Unable to join second node on Windows 2019 failover cluster

Question

hI,

I’m in the process of creating two node Windows 2019 cluster. These are Azure Windows VMs. While creating windows failover cluster, node1 is not able to validate node2, and throws following error “The node cannot be contacted. Ensure that the node is powered on and is connected to the network.“

Both the nodes are in same VNet. Subnet is same, and same IP range and DNS servers are same as well. Test-netconnection between the ports works fine. We’ve disabled Windows firewall, and opened up tcp/ udp communication on all ports temporarily in NSG too.

The local node gets added to cluster just fine. The issue is only with adding remote 2nd node.

There’s no error found in event viewer logs (system/ application/ failover clustering). Cluster log on node1 has no error as well.

On running Add-ClusterNode powershell on node2, it throws following error:

Add-ClusterNode : Check the spelling of the cluster name. Otherwise, there might be a problem with your network. Make sure the cluster nodes are turned on and connected
to the network or contact your network administrator.
The RPC server is unavailable
At line:1 char:28

• ... me testCL | Add-ClusterNode -Name azavsprdsqlb502.poe.gbl.msidentity. ...
• ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
• CategoryInfo : ConnectionError: (:) [Add-ClusterNode], ClusterCmdletException
• FullyQualifiedErrorId : ClusterRpcConnection,Microsoft.FailoverClusters.PowerShell.AddClusterNodeCommand

Has anyone encountered this issue? Any suggestion how to proceed on this.

Thanks

Varun

Answer 1

Hey,

Did you try checking forward and revers dns resolution for the nodes? Did you try creating a cluster from the second node? The following guide might help:
https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resource-library/installing-and-configuring-a-sql-server-failover-clustered-instance-on-microsoft-azure-virtual-machines/

Cheers,

Alex Bykovskyi

StarWind Software

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Answer 2

Hi, I did perform forward and reverse dns look by running powershell on these nodes, and results look fine.

$ipaddr=[System.Net.Dns]::GetHostAddresses($obj.ComputerName) | ?{$.AddressFamily -eq "InterNetwork"} | %{$.IPAddressToString}
Write-host "IP:" $ipaddr
$hostname=[System.Net.Dns]::GetHostByAddress($ipaddr).HostName
Write-host "Host:" $hostname

Yes, the issue is consistent in both the nodes. Infact, we have procured 10+ nodes, and all of them have the same issue.

In the same IP range, VNet, subnet, DNS - we have Win 2016 OS VMs too (set-up last year), and they are running perfectly fine.

Answer 3

Hi,

Do the VMs join the same domain, and the DNS configured is the DC's IP address?

Please check if the VMs can ping with each other?

Besides, please check if we installed failover cluster feature on each cluster nodes correctly?

Thanks for your time!
Best Regards,
Anne

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Answer 4

Thanks, opening ICMP inbound/ outbound completely in NSG solved the issue. Seems like change in rules in windows 2019, since existing rules worked well with windows 2016. Do we know specifically which ICMP ports are to be open? Thanks.

Answer 5

Hi,

The port requirement for Server 2019 cluster is below:

[https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/networking/service-overview-and-network-port-requirements][2]
Thanks for your time!
Best Regards,
Anne

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[20]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/articles/67444/email-notifications.html [2]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/networking/service-overview-and-network-port-requirements