ArcGIS Enterprise Multi-machine Problems

[CraigAJohnson]

I've been dealing with this problem for a while and have even asked questions on here about it but I have not found a solution yet.

I want to setup a multi-machine deployment on two virtual servers (Windows Server 2019);

Machine1 - Portal, ArcGIS Server, Data Store, Web Adaptor (I used Builder to install all software)

Machine2 - ArcGIS Server with Image Server license (just used ArcGIS Server installation software)

Everything loads fine, it's just when I load ArcGIS Server on Machine2 and it asks if I want to "Create a New Site" or "Join an Existing Site" I get the following error:

Failed to join the site 'https://MACHINE1:6443/arcgis/admin/'. Server machine 'https://MACHINE1:6443/arcgis/admin//machines/register' returned an error. 'Admin URL 'https://MACHINE2.GIS.COM:6443/arcgis/admin' is not reachable from 'MACHINE1.GIS.COM'.

I've done multiple installations (wipe the machine and start over) and always receive this error.

I've created Inbound and Outbound rules to open every port that ESRI recommends on both servers. I have a CA-Signed SSL certificate for both servers.  Both servers have a Fully Qualified Doman Name. I can ping each server. I can view the default IIS webpage from each server. I'm using the same ESRI license files for each server. I'm using the same version of ArcGIS Server on each machine (10.8). 

Basically, I've done everything I know to join Machine2 to the existing site on Machine1.

My question - is there anything else, no matter how trivial, that I should look at when setting up the servers. I feel it is a server issue that I'm overlooking, something very simple.  For example, should I worry about the Host file??

Any information would be appreciated.

[JoshuaBixby]

When you use the alias, are you using a fully-qualified alias or just the name?  For example, alias.domain.com vs alias. 

[AaronBooterbaugh]

Craig touch on it where the first machine was set up using Enterprise Builder. The ArcServer on Machine one is a Hosted Server for the Data Store. You can not Join Machine 2 Arc Server to Machine 1 Arc Server because it is already a hosted server. The Arc Server on Machine 2 is an Image Server. You would not Join to an existing site but create a new one on machine 2. With that said you probably want to federate the machine 2 server to the Portal you have on machine 1. Once the Machine 2 server is all set up and working that is when you will federate the server to make it a part of the Portal.

[JonathanQuinn]

While the license issue would cause a failure, it'd be a different failure and one that would be explicit about the licenses needing to be the same.

In this case, I'd agree it appears to be a networking problem. What you could try to do rule out network related issues is define an entries in the etc\hosts file on each machine so you can control how they speak to one another. For example, machine1.domain.com has an IP of 10.0.0.1 and machine2.domain.com has an IP of 10.0.0.2. Within the etc\hosts file on each machine, add:

machine1.domain.com 10.0.0.1

machine2.domain.com 10.0.0.2

The software will look at the etc\hosts file first when performing hostname resolution. If that does work, then it may help prove it's something within DNS/your network.