Using the BDC to populate user profiles from a SQL Server database - Part One
I’m going to post a few articles about the process I went through to get this implemented.
There are a few things that aren’t documented that I wanted to catch in these posts, to prevent any further hair loss in the Sharepoint world.
In this first post I will detail how to install and configure SSO.
You will only need to configure SSO if you are using SQL authentication to connect to SQL Server.
Initial Setup
I used multiple service accounts for my MOSS 2007 farm, to prevent a single point of failure. It can make installation a little more complex, but will provide a stable environment in the long run.
Below is a brief overview of the accounts that are needed for the SSO installation and configuration (For full details on all the accounts needed for a MOSS 2007 installation have a look here.
mossuser-Setup
Used to run installs, you should use this account to log-on to your servers. It should be a local administrator of all your servers and have system administrator rights to the database.
mossuser-FarmAdmin
Used as the application pool for Central Administration and the process account for the Sharepoint Services Timer service. This account needs to be a member of the Logins, Dbcreator, Security Admin and DBO (for each database) roles
mossuser-SSPAppPool, mossuser-PortalAppPool, mossuser-OtherWebAppPool
All accounts that are used for web application pools will need to be able to administer SSO, this can be achieved by adding them to the mossgroup-SSOAdmin group.
mossuser-SSO
This account is used to run the SSO Service, it will need to be a local administrator of the master key server and have securityadministrator rights to the database *
mossgroup-FarmAdmin
This group should be added to the “Farm administrator’s group” and should have the the mossuser-SSO account as a member. (It’s worth while adding all users that need to administer the farm to this group for ease of management)
mossgroup-SSOAdmin
This group is used for the “Single Sign-On Administrator Account” and “Enterprise Application Definition Administrator Account” settings in “Manage Server Settings for Single Sign-On” page. This will need to have the following accounts as members; mossuser-FarmAdmin, mossuser-SSO, mossuser-Setup, mossuser-SSPAppPool, mossuser-PortalAppPool, mossuser-OtherWebAppPool.
Depending on how you manage your MOSS 2007 environment I would also add the mossgroup-FarmAdmin as a member, this means that all Farm administrators will also be able to administer SSO
Configuration
Configure the SSO Service
Locate the “Microsoft Single Sign-on Service” in Services
Right click on the service and select properties
On the “Log On” tab, select “This account” and enter the mossuser-SSO as the user in the format of Domain\User
Click the Apply button and then OK
Restart this service
Update the service account through Central Administration
VERY IMPORTANT
I haven’t seen this documented anywhere, but you need to do this otherwise you will get the following error message when trying to configure SSO. This is only applicable if you are using multiple service accounts, if you are using one account that has local administrator rights and system administrator rights on the database this doesn’t occur
You do not have the rights to perfrom this action
In the event log the following error is logged
User DOMAIN\ mossuser-Setup failed to configure the single sign-on server. The error returned was 0x800708ad. Verify this account has sufficient permissions and try again.
Go to the Central Administration site
In the Central Administration site, go to “Operations” and under “Security Configuration”, click on “Service accounts”
Select the “Windows Service” option and in the drop down, select “Single Sign-on Service”
Select the “Configurable” option and enter the mossuser-SSO user and password
- Click OK
Secondly if you get this error message
Failed to connect to the database server. Verify connectivity and rights for the configuration account and try again.
You need to follow these instruction from the following MS KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/901203
Configure the SSO Server
In the Central Administration site, go to “Operations” and under “Security Configuration”, click on “Manage settings for single sign-on” and then “Manage server settings”.
Enter DOMAIN\mossgroup-SSOAdmin for the “Single Sign-On Administrator Account” in the “Account name” box
Enter DOMAIN\mossgroup-SSOAdmin for the “Enterprise Application Definition Administrator Account” in the “Account name” box
Enter the database server name and the SSO database name for the “Database Settings” in the “Server name”and “Database name” boxes
Click OK
Click on “Manage encryption key” and then click on the “Create Encryption Key” (You can also backup your encryption key here if you need to)
Go back to the “Manage Single Sign-On” screen
Click on “Manage settings for enterprise application definitions”
Click on “New Item”
Enter a display name for the application in the “Display Name” box
Enter an application name for the application in the “Application name” box (You will use this name as the reference later on soI would make it small and easy to remember)
In the “Field 1: Display Name” , enter “User ID” and set “Mask” to “No”
In the “Field 2: Display Name”, enter “Password” and set “Mask” to “Yes”
Click OK
Return back to the “Manage Single Sign-On” screen
Click “Manage account information for enterprise application definitions”
Enter the SQL account name in the “User ID” field
Enter the password for the SQL account in the “Password” field
Click OK
VERY IMPORTANT
This is another task that I haven’t seen documented that needs to be done every time you create an encryption key
Go to the Central Administration site
Under “Upgrade and Migration”, click “Enable features on existing sites”
Check “Enable all sites in this installation to use the following set of features” and click on OK. I think this must send out the new encryption key to the existing sites.
Summary
So I’m hoping now that you have SSO up and running!
In Part Two I will detail how to set up the BDC.
Configure SSO account
If you are unable to give your SSO account security administrator rights on your database then you will need to do the following
On a server that has MOSS 2007 installed, navigate to “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Microsoft Office 12 Single Sign-on” and locate the sso_schema.sql file and take a copy.
Open up “Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio” and connect to your database server.
Create a database called SSO
Put the mossuser-SSO in the dbo role for this database
Make sure you have SSO selected as the database and then open the copied sso_schema.sql file.
Run the script