ASP.NET Login failed for user 'NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE'

Question

I'm trying to publish an asp.net website on a remote server. When my code tries to connect to the database, I get the error message described in the question title. Now, I've gone into the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio for SSE 2008 and can see the list of logins. NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE is there, but I'm not sure what settings I need to change to allow this user to access the database. I've tried using impersonation in my web.config file using the windows login credentials for the server, but that just brings up the same error message, with my windows username instead of NETWORK SERVICE.

My connection string is as follows:

connectionString="Data Source=MECHTRONICRND\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog='C:\Inetpub\aspnettest\App_Data\FLEETMANAGERDB.MDF';Integrated Security=True"

Any ideas?

Thanks

--Amr

Answer 1

Thanks for your replies. After looking at this tutorial, I found out how to allow users access to a database. Once I had allowed NETWORK SERVICE read and write access to the database, my website worked fine with the original connection string.

--Amr

Answer 2

Your connection string should be:

"Data Source=MECHTRONICRND\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=FLEETMANAGERDB;Integrated Security=True"

Also, this is trying to connect to the database as the account that's used by the web server. You could run the web service (configure IIS accordingly) as a domain user, and then create a login and database user for that account. Otherwise, you will have to create a database user (in FleetManagerDB) for the Network Service account, which isn't recommended. Or yourself if you are impersonating yourself.