Security consideration for Pull Subscription
Hi,
I am looking to implement transactional replication (pull subscription).
The publisher and distributor will be on the one instance but the subscriber server will be a non-trusted domain.
After the snapshot agent runs, i think the distribution agent, which will be on the subscriber, will not be able to access the snapshot folder on the distributor. The work around would be to run the subscriber sql agent on a local account which is also setup on the distributor (identical account name and password). If running the sql agent on a local windows account is not an option on the subscriber, are there other alternatives?
Cheers,
Priyanga
If you unable to assign permissions on the snapshot folder for the process account on the Subscriber, one option is to copy the snapshot files to an alternate location (on the Subscriber's network, presumably), and have the Distribution Agent read them from the alternate location.
Here are the steps to do this:
1) Copy the files to the desired location and assign the necessary access permissions on the folder.
2) In Management Studio, connect to the Subscriber, expand the Replicaton and Local Subscriptions folders.
3) Right click on the pull subscription and select Properties.
4) In the property list, find "Snapshot location" and select "Alternate folder"
5) In the property list, find "Snapshot folder" and enter the path from step 1.
6) Run the Distribution Agent.
Phil Garding
Hi Phil,
Should i manually copy the snapshot files to the alternate location once the alternate location has been set?
I am suspecting that the snapshot agent won't have access to the alternate location as this lies on the subscriber network. This is because the user that runs the snapshot agent on the distributor does not have access to the alternate folder on the subscriber as its on a different domain.
Priyanga
I also would expect that the Snapshot Agent cannot access the folder on the Subscriber. (That's the reverse of the problem as you have now with the Distribution Agent.) It doesn't matter whether you copy the files or change the subscription property first, as long as both are done before you start the Distribution Agent. (If the Distribution Agent is set to run continuously, stop it, then copy the files and set the property, then start it again.)
Phil.
