Tag Archives: vm

Add Remote Network Service Account to SQL Server

I make extensive use of virtual machines for testing purposes. I recently needed to allow the Network Service account of one of my VMs to connect to SQL Server on another of my VMs. Both machines are on the same domain, so I thought I could use the search feature on the new login dialog to find the Network Service for that machine. Unfortunately it was not so simple. I also had quite a difficult time find information about it on Google.

It turns out to be rather simple though. You just append $ to the name of the remote machine. Suppose my remote machine is on the domain “OURS”, and the machine’s name is “MINE”. Then the SQL login for the Network Service account on MINE is “OURS\MINE$”. You won’t be able to verify this with “Check Name” though. You’ll have to actually try connecting the the SQL Server from the remote machine to make sure it works properly.

Hopefully this will save someone else an hour or two of searching on Google.

Windows Server 2008 R2 domain controller: Fixing SceCli Event 1202

When running IIS, SQL Server, or SharePoint on a Windows Server 2008 R2 domain controller, you may encounter this error:

Application Event
Event ID: 1202
Source: SceCli
Security Policies were propagated with warning. 0x534 : No mapping between account names and security IDs was done.

I ran into this error when building a virtual machine to run a self contained SharePoint environment, which required that the VM also be a domain controller. This event will show up repeatedly every few minutes in the application event log. The error occurs because the domain controller doesn’t have a concept of “local” accounts and doesn’t know how to resolve some account names that are added by IIS and SQL Server to the domain controller security policy. Microsoft has released a hotfix 977695 to resolve the issue. Continue reading Windows Server 2008 R2 domain controller: Fixing SceCli Event 1202

Hyper-V, COM ports, and the StarTech NETRS2321E

As you may already know, Hyper-V does not allow you to connect physical COM ports to child virtual machines. This poses a problem for many people who want to virtualize servers with legacy devices connected via RS-232. There are different hardware and/or software solutions available, but ultimately they all require that you make your COM ports available over a network connection. Your main options are to share/redirect a COM port from a physical machine to a virtual machine, or to use a hardware adapter to connect the RS-232 device directly to the network.

For our legacy application, I chose to go with a hardware adapter. We purchased the StarTech 1 Port RS-232/422/485 Serial over IP adapter. I was very eager to get this adapter because it would allow us to virtualize an old server that was still relying on a directly connected serial device. I chose to go with an adapter so we could have flexibility and not need to rely on a single server to do some sort of sharing or redirecting of a COM port.

After we received the adapter I was a little disappointed. Continue reading Hyper-V, COM ports, and the StarTech NETRS2321E