Local system account and Mirroring.

Hi,

Is it possible to set up database mirroring between two servers that have SQL Service running under Local system? I tried to setup mirroring between two servers running under Local system but was running into the following error:

Server or Network address cannot be reached or does not exist.

What are the pre-requisites for setting up database mirroring if the service runs under Local system? Do I have to configure certificates? Is that mandatory? Can anyone please let me know. Any other gotchas?

Thanks

AK

Hi Ankith,
You can setup mirroring with local system account if there are two instances of sql server in the same machine !
you can refer the below link for settingup mirroring using local system account with 3 instances of sql server in the same machine,
Certificates is not required !
http://www.sql-articles.com/articles/dbmrr.htm

Thanxx
Deepak

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Hi Deepak,

Thanks for your reply. My scenario is not the same as you have mentioned. I have two different servers in the same domain but in different continents and running under local system. They are not instances on the same machine. They are two servers geographically apart. Can I still configure them without certificates?

Thanks again

AK

|||Is there some reason why you can't run the SQL Server services using a domain account? That is, after all, what Microsoft recommends. You would have to configure the endpoints to use windows authentication.
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Hi Bob,

Thanks for your reply. I configured the endpoints using windows authentication but no luck. It still failed. we will use domain accounts.

Thanks

AK

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You can not use local system to span machines. Local system, as the name describes, is LOCAL to the machine it is on. Local system has no security context outside of the local machine. Therefore, it does not have a valid SID on any other machine and can not be resolved. Since it can not be resolved, you can not use it to gain access to any resource external to the machine it exists on. Every Windows machine has an account named local system, but every single one of them is a different account with a SID only valid on its own machine.

You have to be using either local, named accounts or domain accounts.