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A Step by Step Guide to the
Availability Group (AG) Listener
Rathish kumar B, 2019-07-02
Availability databases hosted on SQL Server Always On Availability Groups (AG)
can be connected using a unique Virtual Network Name (VNN), called the
Availability Group Listener. When an Availability Group is enabled, clients can
connect to databases in both primary and secondary replicas without explicitly
specifying the SQL Server instance name. You don’t even need to know the
instance name to connect to an AG.
When you have con�gured read-only routing for secondary replicas and the
application or client connection contains the application intent set to read-only,
the listener will redirect the connection to readable secondary replicas, Otherwise,
the listener redirects both read-write and read-only intent connections to the
primary replica. If there is a failover, the listener will redirect connections to the
new primary and secondary connections based on the application intent.
The Availability Group Listener consist of following objects:
• a Domain Name System (DNS) name
• a Listener port
• One or more IP addresses (VIP)
Example:
• DNS: salesag.mscorp.com
• Port: 1433
• IP: static or DHCP
The Listener is always owned by the SQL Server instance where the primary
replica resides. At the time of failover, the new primary replica will own the
listener.
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Con�guring the Listener
The Availability Group Listener can be created while creating the AG, or it can be
created afterward. The Listener creation options are available on the Specify
Replicas window, under the Listener tab.
If you want to skip the Listener creation while creating Availability Group, you can
leave the default option, Do not create an availability group listener now,
selected. Check the below image for reference:
After creating the Availability Group, you can con�gure the listener from
Availability Groups -> Group Name -> Add Listener. Either in the create an
availability group listener or the New Availability Group Listener wizards, specify
the Listener DNS Name, Port, and Network Mode values. The following �gure
shows the example availability group listener from my lab.
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You can con�gure the Network Mode as DHCP (Dynamic Host Con�guration
Protocol). DHCP is limited to single subnet, and it is not recommended for
production environments. Choose the Static IP option from the drop down if you
want a multi-subnet Availability Group.
To add an IP address, click on the Add button and provide the IP address in the
Add IPv4 Address text box.
Additionally, you can script out the changes to a query window and see T-SQL
script. The code from my demo cluster are shown here:
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USE [master]
GO
ALTER AVAILABILITY GROUP [MSCORPAG]
ADD LISTENER N'mscorpag' (
WITH IP
((N'192.168.0.7', N'255.255.252.0')
)
, PORT=1433);
GO
You can con�gure port 1433, the default SQL Server instance port, for the
Availability Group Listener. In that case, you don’t have to specify the port number
explicitly in a connection string or client connection. If you specify a custom port,
the client must explicitly specify the port. If you have more than one SQL Server
instance on the machine, I recommend you use a different port because the
listener may be con�gured to the named instance, which is often listening on a
different port.
Connecting to the Availability Group Listener
To connect to a database in an AG through the Availability Group Listener, specify
the listener name in the server name box as shown below:
I am using the default port number in the dialog above. If you are using a different
port number, specify it explicitly in the connection string by including it after the
name, preceded by a comma. An example connection string with a different port
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number (3306) is provided below:
connUrl = "jdbc:sqlserver://mscorpag.mscorp.com:3306;databaseName=msdb;user=rathish;pas
Listener and User Permissions
When you create an Availability Group Listener, the cluster will create a computer
object on a domain controller and assign its computer name as the virtual
network name automatically. To perform this, the cluster should have the Create
Computer Object permission in your Active Directory.
Alternatively, I created a listener with the help of a Domain Administrator by
following this method. First, create a computer object in Active Directory and
assign the listener name as the computer name to that object. The cluster, the
name of the cluster that owns the AG, will have the full control on the newly
created computer object. Add an entry in DNS to link that computer name with a
static IP address. Now create the listener on the AG. In the troubleshooting
section of this article, we look into the common error scenarios with listener
creation permission.
On SQL Server, you need sysadmin privilege to create the availability group
listener and at least the ALTER AVAILABILITY GROUP permission to modify the
listener.
Read-Only Routing and the Availability Group Listener
In a SQL Server Availability Group (AG), the read-only routing feature provides
scalability by redirecting read-only connections (SELECT queries) to readable
secondary replicas. The routing of these connection to secondary replicas works
only when the applications or clients connecting availability databases through
availability group listener. If you are connecting directly to SQL Server instance
name, at the time of failover, connections will not automatically failover to new
primary server.
As stated earlier, listener will redirect connections to both primary and secondary
replicas. If you have con�gured any of the secondary replicas as readable and
specify the application intent in your connection string as read only, the listener
will redirect connections to the secondary readable replicas based on the read-
only routing con�guration. Refer here for a detailed explanation. An example
connection string with the Application Intent and default database set is given
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below:
connUrl = "jdbc:sqlserver://mscorpag.mscorp.com:3306;databaseName=mscorp;user=rathish;p
You must specify the ApplicationIntent and Default database in the connection
string for read-only routing to work, otherwise the connection will be redirected to
primary replica only. Later in this article, we will see the troubleshooting steps for
this scenario.
Availability Group Listener and Multi-Subnet Failover
You should set the MultiSubnetFailover option as True to enable this option and
provide faster failover when your AG spans multiple subnets. It is recommended
to set this option as True, even if the AG only spans a single subnet. This provides
additional optimizations, even for single subnets at the time of failover.
An example connection string with the multi-subnet failover option:
connUrl = "jdbc:sqlserver://mscorpag.mscorp.com:3306;databaseName=mscorp;user=rathish;p
Monitoring the Availability Group Listener
SQL Server provides the following catalog views to monitor availability group
listener properties:
• sys.availability_group_listener_ip_addresses: returns the virtual IP address of
availability group listeners
• sys.availability_group_listeners: returns the network name of availability group
listeners
• sys.dm_tcp_listener_states: returns the status of TCP IP address and port of
availability group listener.
Removing the Availability Group Listener
You can remove Availability Group Listener, either using SSMS or T-SQL. In SSMS,
right-click on listener name and select the Delete options to remove the
availability group listener.
Using T-SQL, use an ALTER command such as the one below:
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ALTER AVAILABILITY GROUP MSCORPAG REMOVE LISTENER 'mscorpag.mscorp.net';
Troubleshooting availability group listener issues
Here are a few sample scenarios that might occur along with a few solutions.
Scenario 1: Unable to create availability group listener
Error: Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 19457
Message:
The specified IP Address '<IP address>' is not valid in the cluster-allowed IP range
Msg 19471, Level 16, State 0, Line 2
The WSFC cluster could not bring the Network Name resource with DNS name
Msg 19476, Level 16, State 4, Line 2
The attempt to create the network name and IP address for the listener failed
Possible Cause 1: The cluster name account does not have the Create Computer
Objects in Active Directory Organizational Unit.
Solution: Grant Create Computer Object to Cluster account name.
Select the Advanced Feature option by View -> Advanced Features:
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Go to Advanced Security Settings for Organizational Unit (OU). Follow the
highlighted part as below image:
Select the Create Computer Objects from permission tab:
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Possible Cause 2: The cluster user account, which has Account Operator
permission on Active Directory by default can create up to 10 computer objects,
and it has exceeded its limit now.
Solution: If your organisation polity allowed, grant Create Computer Object
permission to cluster account, or pre-stage the required objects on the Active
Directory, organizational unit.
When you create an Availability Group Listener, a virtual computer object will be
created at the particular organizational unit of active directory automatically. You
can pre-stage the virtual computer objects as follows:
Create a computer objects under the organizational unit where you hosted the
cluster. Check with your domain administrator if you don’t have access to create
objects on Active Directory Domain Controller.
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Grant Full control permission to cluster name account on newly created computer
object. Note that, this name should be same as the listener name, you will be
creating on the AG.
Scenario 2: Read-Only routing not working with listener
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Error: ApplicationIntent=ReadOnly is speci�ed in the application connection
string and read-only routing is con�gured on the AG, but when connecting to
listener, it is not redirecting to secondary readable replicas.
Possible Cause: You have not mentioned the default database in the connection
string. For more information on this behavior, click here.
Solution: Add Initial Catalog value in connection string.
Example SSMS connection string:
Scenario 3: Availability Group Listener - login time-out error
Error: You are unable to connect to availability group listener in a multi-subnet
environment. This error usually occurs at the time of failover.
Possible Cause 1: Your application uses legacy data provider that does not
support the multi-subnet failover features.
Solution: Use the newer version of SQLClient drivers that supports multi-subnet
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features.
Possible Cause 2: MultiSubnetFailover parameters are not used in the connection
string.
Solution: Include the MultiSubnetFailover=True parameter in connection string to
�x this issue.
Example:
connUrl = "jdbc:sqlserver://mscorpag.mscorp.com:3306;databaseName=mscorp;user=rathish;p
Scenario 3: Availability Group Listener name not resolving to IP address
Error: After failover in a multi-subnet environment, ping command from client not
resolving to new IP address of the listener and DNS entry of the listener name
shows IPs of both subnets.
Possible Cause: This error generally occurs, when listener is created using the
Failover Cluster Manager, rather than from SSMS.
Solution: Set the value of RegisterAllProvidersIP value to 0. This require a restart
of the listener network name resource.
Example:
PowerShell:
Import-Module FailoverClusters
Get-ClusterResource dbcluster |Set-ClusterParameter
RegisterAllProvidersIP 0
Cluster.exe:
cluster /cluster: dbcluster res mscorpag /priv
RegisterAllProvidersIP=0
If still ping to listener returning wrong IP address, from application/client system,
open a command prompt as administrator and run the ipcon�g /�ushdns
command.
Scenario 4: Server cannot host the availability group listener IP address
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Error: Error 19456, Severity 16:
Error 19456, Severity 16: None of the IP addresses configured for the availability
Solution: Add a new IP address manually to existing listener with different
subnet.
Scenario 5: Active Directory Policy
Error: Error 8557
Message:
Message: Error 8557 (Your computer could not be joined to the domain. You have exceede
A computer object is created automatically whenever you create an Availability
Group Listener. Even if you drop the listener, the computer object remains there in
Active Directory. By default, authenticated domain users can create up to 10
computer objects. When this limit is exceeded, it will throw an error at the time of
the Availability Group Listener creation.
Solution: You may contact your domain admin to clean up this computer objects
or ask them to increase the default limit (I think it is a global variable).
Best practices
A few good practices to follow when creating the Availability Group Listener.
• Use a static IP address for reliable connections and multi subnet failover
• Use a meaningful and unique listener name for each AG
• Test the Listener on a staging server before implementing it on production
environment
• Additionally, to avoid the accidental deletion on cluster objects, enable the
Protect objects from accidental deletion option.
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I hope this article is helpful to you, if you have queries or want to share your
thoughts on availability group listener, please write it in comment section. Thank
you!
The article also published on my blog, you can visit here.
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