Access to SQL Server 2005 from a non-domain machine using Windows authentication

Question

I have a Windows domain within which a machine is running SQL Server 2005 and which is configured to support only Windows authentication. I would like to run a C# client application on a machine on the same network, but which is NOT on the domain, and access a database on the SQL Server 2005 instance.

I thought that it would be a simple matter of doing something like this:

string connectionString = "Data Source=server;Initial Catalog=database;User Id=domain\user;Password=password";
SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection(connectionString);
connection.Open();

However, this fails: the client-side error is:

System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: Login failed for user 'domain\\user\u0026#39; and the server-side error is: Error 18456, Severity 14, State 5

I have tried various things including setting integrated security to true and false, and \\ instead of \\ in the User Id, but without success.

In general, I know that it possible to connect to the SQL Server 2005 instance from a non-domain machine (for example, I am working with a Linux-based application which happily does this), but I don't seem to be able to work out how to do it from a Windows machine.

Answer 1

With Management Studio when connecting to a server on another domain via Windows Authentication you need to use the "runas" Facility when starting the application.

 runas /user:OTHERDOMAIN\OTHERUSERNAME  /netonly 
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\VSShell\Common7\IDE\Ssms.exe"

Maybe you could try an analogous thing when starting your application?

Answer 2

(Per Martin Smith's answer) I use RUNAS /NETONLY all the time to run SSMS and the BI dev studio and Visual Studio IDE and other 3rd party applications against a server on a domain we do not authenticate against. I'm not sure why you can't do this - you must somehow have an account on that domain which works with SQL Server if you are using integrated security.

In addition, I modified one of my main C# programs to use CreateProcessWithLogonW with LOGON_NETCREDENTIALS_ONLY ( How to build RUNAS /NETONLY functionality into a (C#/.NET/WinForms) program? ) so that it prompts for username and password and then re-launches itself.

Using the same API, I also made a version of RUNAS /NETONLY which will accept a password on the command-line, since RUNAS will NOT allow a password on the command-line. Obviously, this is an inherent security risk, and I don't use it frequently.

As a matter of completeness, there is also this great shell extension: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc300361.aspx - the regular Run As Shell extension doesn't have the ability to do the equivalent of /NETONLY.

Answer 3

可以在每台计算机上使用相同的用户名和密码创建本地用户创建这些用户后，让SQL Server服务器上的用户访问SQL Server，在另一台计算机上，您的应用程序必须以新创建的方式运行用户，如果是Web应用程序，只需更改应用程序池设置。

Answer 4

Did you try connecting with machineName\\UserName ? I'd also imagine that such a user should be created in the SQL database well - correct?