Monday, October 5, 2009

Windows 2008 R2 Cluster Error: The Argument is null or empty String

One of these days I got this error when configuring a Hyper-V Cluster (To create a cluster in Windows 2008 R2 check my previous post here).

Error:
The Argument is null or empty String.
Parameter name: Domain Name



What the Heck !!! The cluster validation went without problems, what could be the cause of this error??!!

Try the following:
1 - Make sure that your NIC DNS settings contain the correct IP for your domain DNS servers.
2 - Make sure that the option "Register this connection's address in DNS" is selected in ALL NODES of the CLUSTER. By default this option is selected.
3 - In more complex domain environments, depending of your Domain/and/DNS design you may need to select the option "Append these DNS suffixes (in order)" and then manually enter the FQDN of your domain name and if needed of other existing domains. You may start only with your FQDN and then you can latter add the other ones.
4 - If you have multiple NICs, disable all except the one, review DNS settings and try again, doing this will help you to isolate the root cause of the problem, and if success, review the configurations on these NICs (FW, IPAddress, Routes, etc...).
5 - Reboot the server and check if the server correctly register his DNS IP on your DNS servers.



Hum... Okay ENICKB, but and if I'm in a Windows 2008 R2 Core Edition?
If you're in a Core Edition you need to change the registry accordantly

Register this connection's addresses in DNS is located at:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\{Interface GUID}\ RegistrationEnabled
and change the value from "0" to "1".


Note: Your {Interface GUID} will differ from those in the picture. Additionally you may need to configure this setting in one or more NICs.

Append these DNS suffixes (in order)":
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Tcpip\Parameters\SearchList

Additional note, when using the cluster wizard to add nodes of the future cluster try adding them using the FQDN of the servers, but remember, even if you add the NetBIOS Name of these servers, when you press enter they should be changed from NetBIOS format to FQDN.
Hopefully this will help you with your cluster creation successfully.

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