Trend Micro and MS SQL

Trend Micro software doesn’t play well with SQL logins. OK, SQL logins work but not in the way that is considered a security best practice: Windows Authentication. This became a nuisance during a recent Trend Micro IMSS installation.

The person in charge of installing the upgrade wanted to move the suite and database to another server. When he got to the step to provide the SQL Server username and password, he would put in the Windows domain account information. IMSS would then give an error indicating it couldn’t communicate with the SQL Server. I checked the SQL logs and it was showing that the login failed. He tried several times, making sure the password was correct, but it would fail every time. I had him try changing the domain username to domain\user and it would still fail.

We both checked the admin and installation guides for IMSS. The guides didn’t have any information about what could be causing the error. After about 20 minutes, it finally hit me. We had the same problem when we moved the Trend Micro OfficeScan Server to a new Windows and SQL server a couple of months ago. The admin guide for the OfficeScan server specifically stated that the installation did not support Windows Authentication with SQL Server. You must use a login that is set up on the SQL Server.

We tried the installation again, using the SQL Login I had set up for the OfficeScan Server install, and it worked fine. I did have to give Create any database rights to the login because the installation will not use an existing database. Why it won’t use an existing DB and just drop the tables/views/stored procedures is unknown to me. Instead, if a database with the name provided already exist, the install will drop the database and recreate it.

Untold suffering seldom is. - Franklin P. Jones

17.Oct.07 Microsoft SQL, Software