I’m trying to compile a list of TCP/IP ports that do not like to be load balanced. Please contribute to this post by sharing your experiences. So far after having activated my load balancer I have the follow to contend with:
TCP Port 443 (HTTPS)
Some banking sites, notably ABSA South Africa (https://ib.absa.co.za/ib/ib.jsp) redirects back to a logon screen prompting for credentials again. The problem with most banking sites is they are hosted on multiple HTTPS servers so it’s hard to pinpoint the correct IPs, solution is to force the whole protocol.
TCP Port 22 (SSH)
SSH sessions go into a standstill. Route this over a non-load balanced link.
TCP Port 1863 (MSN)
MSN disconnects. Although MSN seems to have beter reconnection code these days, you can still feel the disconnect. I have only tested this behavior with text chat and not video. Solution is to force over one link.
I also seem to remember ICQ, IRC and a couple of others but because I don’t currently have access to those applications I’ll wait for more feedback.