Mike,
let me first say, that if you configure a sticky-inact-timeout, once the entry times out it is removed IMMEDIATELY. There is no concept of elligibility. [this for flows and garbage collection - nothing to do with stickyness].
Here is an example
CSS11503-2(debug)# show sticky-table l3-sticky
L3 Sticky List on Slot 1, subslot 1:
Entries for page 1.
Entry Hash Rule Rule Srv Srv Time(Sec) Hit Col Elem Inact
Number Value Indx State Indx State Elapsed Cnt Cnt Type Cfg(Min)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 c0a81429 5 ACT 9 EGRES 59 2 0 L3 1
Total number of entries found is 1.
L3 Sticky List on Slot 3, subslot 1:
Entries for page 1.
Entry Hash Rule Rule Srv Srv Time(Sec) Hit Col Elem Inact
Number Value Indx State Indx State Elapsed Cnt Cnt Type Cfg(Min)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total number of entries found is 0.
CSS11503-2(debug)# show sticky-table l3-sticky
L3 Sticky List on Slot 1, subslot 1:
Entries for page 1.
Entry Hash Rule Rule Srv Srv Time(Sec) Hit Col Elem Inact
Number Value Indx State Indx State Elapsed Cnt Cnt Type Cfg(Min)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total number of entries found is 0.
L3 Sticky List on Slot 3, subslot 1:
Entries for page 1.
Entry Hash Rule Rule Srv Srv Time(Sec) Hit Col Elem Inact
Number Value Indx State Indx State Elapsed Cnt Cnt Type Cfg(Min)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total number of entries found is 0.
CSS11503-2(debug)# show sticky-table l3-sticky
L3 Sticky List on Slot 1, subslot 1:
Entries for page 1.
Entry Hash Rule Rule Srv Srv Time(Sec) Hit Col Elem Inact
Number Value Indx State Indx State Elapsed Cnt Cnt Type Cfg(Min)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 c0a81429 5 ACT 14 EGRES 3 1 0 L3 1
As you can see, with a 1 min timeout, after 60 sec the entry is removed, and the next time the client comes in it is sent to a different server which creates a new entry.
So, your problem is that you either do not have the sticky-inact-timeout, in which case you need to manually clear the sticky table when a server goes down/up, or you have the timeout configured but with a value too high so the sticky entry is never removed because always refreshed by a new connection.
You can use 'advanced-balance ssl' without the ssl module but it only works with 1 type of ssl protocol - SSLv2 [I think] and for the other protocols it just reverts back to sticky-srcip.
So, you should stick with sticky-srcip and just make it works correctly by setting correct parameter or by clearing the sticky table manually.
Finally, I'd like to say that there is a known-issue with sticky-srcip in general.
This is the use of mega-proxy on the Internet.
A lot of people sitting behind a proxy and therefore appearing with a single ip address on the internet.
This is known to cause un-even loadbalancing.
That might be your problem and changing the inact-timeout would have no effect.
This is one of the reason for a lot of people to buy the ssl module so they can use cookies.
Gilles.
