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Implementing Database Mirroring in SQL Server 2005 across domains

By: Edwin Sarmiento | Read Comments (12) | Related Tips: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | More > Database Mirroring

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Problem
I want to implement database mirroring on my SQL Server 2005 databases, but both the principal and mirror servers are not members of the domain or are members of different Active Directory domains that do not have trust relationships. How do I go about it?

Solution
Database mirroring has become a very popular choice for a high availability solution in SQL Server 2005. And while Microsoft recommends using Windows Authentication for anything accessing SQL Server, there are cases where this is a limitation. A typical example would be a non-Microsoft application running on a non-Microsoft platform accessing a SQL Server database. Another would be SQL Servers spread across different geographical locations with no Active Directory to authenticate user access or member servers on different domains with no trust relationships. SQL Server 2005 enables us to configure database mirroring under mixed mode authentication using SQL Server logins with the added security of using certificates.

We will use the Northwind database to demonstrate the process. Remember to change Northwind's database recovery model to FULL before working through the steps below.

Let's call the principal server testServer1, the mirror server testServer2 and witness server testServer3. You can also do this without the witness although this tip will highlight using one.

1) Backup the principal database and restore it on the mirror server

Perform a FULL and LOG backup for the Northwind database on the principal server.

--Run this on testServer1/principal server  
USE master   
GO   
BACKUP DATABASE Northwind    
   TO DISK = N'D:\DBBackup\NorthwindBackup.bak'   
   WITH NAME = N'Full Database Backup',   
    INIT, STATS = 10   
GO   

BACKUP LOG Northwind    
   TO DISK = N'D:\DBBackup\NorthwindBackupLog.trn'   
   WITH NAME = N'Transaction Log Backup',     
       STATS = 10   
GO

After the backup has completed, restore it on the mirror server using the WITH NORECOVERY option.

--Run this on testServer2/mirror server  
RESTORE DATABASE Northwind   
FROM DISK = N'D:\DBBackup\NorthwindBackup.bak'   
WITH NORECOVERY 
GO   

RESTORE LOG Northwind   
FROM DISK = N'D:\DBBackup\NorthwindBackupLog.trn'   
WITH NORECOVERY 
GO

2) Validate your DNS entries

Chances are that you may have your DNS entries for the SQL Server instances properly configured. To validate, do a PING test on both hostnames of the servers running your SQL Server 2005 instances using it's fully qualified domain name (FQDN) in the form hostname.primary DNS suffix. You can retrieve the value of the primary DNS suffix by running an IPCONFIG /ALL in your command line. For servers in workgroups, this could be a bit of a challenge as you might not have a DNS server that would resolve the hostname to their appropriate IP addresses. You would have to modify your hosts file to manually add the IP address-hostname mappings. To do this, open the hosts file on your %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\ using any text editor. Enter the IP addresses and hostnames of your principal, mirror and witness servers as shown below

3) Create a database master key on the principal server

--Run this on the principal server/testServer1  
USE master  

CREATE MASTER KEY ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD = 'y0ur$ecUr3PAssw0rd';  
GO

4) Create the server-based certificate which will be used to encrypt the database mirroring endpoint

--Run this on the principal server/testServer1  
CREATE CERTIFICATE testServer1_cert WITH SUBJECT = 'testServer1 certificate for database mirroring'  
GO

5) Create the database mirroring endpoint for the principal server using the certificate for authentication

--Run this on the principal server/testServer1  
CREATE ENDPOINT Endpoint_Mirroring STATE = STARTED 
AS TCP(LISTENER_PORT = 9999, LISTENER_IP = ALL)  
FOR DATABASE_MIRRORING (AUTHENTICATION = CERTIFICATE testServer1_cert,  
ENCRYPTION = REQUIRED ALGORITHM AES, ROLE = ALL);  
GO

This script creates a database mirroring endpoint named Endpoint_Mirroring using port number 9999 and the certificate named testServer1_cert. You can use any encryption algorithm available in SQL Server 2005 a described in this Microsoft TechNet article. I just opted to use AES. You can validate that the endpoint has been created by querying the sys.endpoints catalog view

6) Export the certificate to a file

--Run this on the principal server/testServer1  
BACKUP CERTIFICATE testServer1_cert TO FILE = 'C:\testServer1_cert.cer';  
GO

7) Copy the certificate file to the mirror and witness server

You need to copy the certificate file to both the mirror and the witness server as we will use this certificate to associate a login for authentication. For this example, all certificates will be copied to the C:\ drive on all servers

Steps #3 to #7 should be repeated on both mirror and witness server, modifying the certificate name while keeping the other configurations.

A complete script for the mirror server is shown below

--Run this on testServer2  

--STEP #3:  
USE master  

CREATE MASTER KEY ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD = 'y0ur$ecUr3PAssw0rd';  
GO 

--STEP #4:  
CREATE CERTIFICATE testServer2_cert WITH SUBJECT = 'testServer2 certificate for database mirroring'  
GO  

--STEP #5:  
CREATE ENDPOINT Endpoint_Mirroring STATE = STARTED  
AS TCP(LISTENER_PORT = 9999, LISTENER_IP = ALL)  
FOR DATABASE_MIRRORING (AUTHENTICATION = CERTIFICATE testServer2_cert,  
ENCRYPTION = REQUIRED ALGORITHM AES, ROLE = ALL);  
GO  

--STEP #6:  
BACKUP CERTIFICATE testServer2_cert TO FILE = 'C:\testServer2_cert.cer';  
GO 

--STEP #7: Copy the certificate to the principal and witness servers

A complete script for the witness server is shown below

--Run this on testServer3  

--STEP #3:  
USE master  

CREATE MASTER KEY ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD = 'y0ur$ecUr3PAssw0rd';  
GO 

--STEP #4:  
CREATE CERTIFICATE testServer3_cert WITH SUBJECT = 'testServer3 certificate for database mirroring'  
GO  

--STEP #5:  
CREATE ENDPOINT Endpoint_Mirroring STATE = STARTED  
AS TCP(LISTENER_PORT = 9999, LISTENER_IP = ALL)  
FOR DATABASE_MIRRORING (AUTHENTICATION = CERTIFICATE testServer3_cert,  
ENCRYPTION = REQUIRED ALGORITHM AES, ROLE = ALL);  
GO  

--STEP #6:  
BACKUP CERTIFICATE testServer3_cert TO FILE = 'C:\testServer3_cert.cer';  
GO 

--STEP #7: Copy the certificate to the principal and mirror servers

8) Create a login on the principal for the mirror

For simplicity's sake we shall use the same name for the login on all servers to identify that it is used primarily for the database mirroring sessions

--Run this on testServer1 

USE master;  
CREATE LOGIN login_mirroring WITH PASSWORD = 'y0ur$ecUr3PAssw0rd';  
GO

9) Create a user for the login

--Run this on testServer1 

CREATE USER login_mirroring  
FOR LOGIN login_mirroring  
GO

10) Associate the certificate we created in Step #4 with the user

This script will associate the certificate we created for the mirror server - testServer2_cert.cer - to the user login_mirroring

--Run this on testServer1 

CREATE CERTIFICATE testServer2_cert  
AUTHORIZATION login_mirroring  
FROM FILE = 'C:\testServer2_cert.cer'  
GO

We'll do the same thing for the certificate we created for the witness server - testServer3_cert.cer - to the user login_mirroring

--Run this on testServer1 

CREATE CERTIFICATE testServer3_cert  
AUTHORIZATION login_mirroring  
FROM FILE = 'C:\testServer3_cert.cer'  
GO

11) Grant the CONNECT permission on the login

This script will grant the CONNECT permission to the login login_mirroring for the database mirroring endpoint

--Run this on testServer1 

GRANT CONNECT ON ENDPOINT::Endpoint_Mirroring TO [login_mirroring];  
GO

Since we used the same name for the logins on all servers, you only need to do this once. If you are using a different name for the logins, you will have to do this for each login. The key thing to remember here is that the logins you use to connect to any of the SQL Server 2005 instances are granted the CONNECT permissions with the appropriate certificates.

We will do the exact same thing on both the mirror and witness servers.

A complete script for the mirror server is shown below

--Run this on testServer2 

--STEP #8:  
USE master;  
CREATE LOGIN login_mirroring WITH PASSWORD = 'y0ur$ecUr3PAssw0rd';  
GO 

--STEP #9: 
CREATE USER login_mirroring  
FOR LOGIN login_mirroring  
GO 

--STEP #10: 
CREATE CERTIFICATE testServer1_cert  
AUTHORIZATION login_mirroring  
FROM FILE = 'C:\testServer1_cert.cer'  
GO 

CREATE CERTIFICATE testServer3_cert  
AUTHORIZATION login_mirroring  
FROM FILE = 'C:\testServer3_cert.cer'  
GO 

--STEP #11: 
GRANT CONNECT ON ENDPOINT::Endpoint_Mirroring TO [login_mirroring];  
GO

A complete script for the witness server is shown below

--Run this on testServer3 

--STEP #8:  
USE master;  
CREATE LOGIN login_mirroring WITH PASSWORD = 'y0ur$ecUr3PAssw0rd';  
GO 

--STEP #9: 
CREATE USER login_mirroring  
FOR LOGIN login_mirroring  
GO 

--STEP #10: 
CREATE CERTIFICATE testServer1_cert  
AUTHORIZATION login_mirroring  
FROM FILE = 'C:\testServer1_cert.cer'  
GO 

CREATE CERTIFICATE testServer2_cert  
AUTHORIZATION login_mirroring  
FROM FILE = 'C:\testServer2_cert.cer'  
GO 

--STEP #11: 
GRANT CONNECT ON ENDPOINT::Endpoint_Mirroring TO [login_mirroring];  
GO

12) Prepare the mirror server for the database mirroring session

This script prepares the mirror database for the database mirroring session, specifying testServer1 as the partner. It is important to run this first on the mirror server before running the equivalent script on the principal server. The hostname specified here should be resolved using the approach you used in Step #2

--Run this on testServer2  
USE master  
GO  
ALTER DATABASE Northwind SET PARTNER = 'TCP://testServer1:9999';  
GO

13) Prepare the principal server for the database mirroring session

Now that the mirror database has been prepared for the database mirroring session, we will do the same for the principal database specifying testServer2 as the partner.

--Run this on testServer1  
USE master  
GO  
ALTER DATABASE Northwind SET PARTNER = 'TCP://testServer2:9999';  
GO

We will also specify testServer3 as the witness.

--Run this on testServer1  
USE master  
GO  
ALTER DATABASE Northwind SET WITNESS = 'TCP://testServer3:9999';  
GO

14) Validate the database mirroring configuration using Database Mirroring Monitor

Run the Database Mirroring Monitor to check the status of the database mirroring sessions. This MSDN article on SQL Server Books Online describes how to launch the Database Mirroring Monitor.

Next Steps

Try configuring database mirroring using certificates by following the procedures outlined above
Check out this MSDN article on how to setup database mirroring
You can get the Northwind database used in the sample here.

Related Tips

Click here for more articles on similar subjects

Last Update: 3/11/2009

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Comments and Feedback:

Tuesday, April 21, 2009 - 11:05:32 AM - sfrvn

Read The Tip

This tip seems to be exactly what I need. Additionally, I applaud the style in which it is presented! However, when I attempt to follow the steps outlined in the tip, I encountered two issues. The second issue stopped my progress. Let me elaborate:

A) I started on Step 3. All previous steps were already done. The script executed without issue.

B) For Step 4, I copied the SQL and pasted it into a New Query. The script would not 'run' as listed in the tip. I discovered that if I preceded the listed script with USE <database_name> the script executed. I noted that the Step 3 script cited USE master. But I want to mirror a database named serverInfo, so I created:

USE serverInfo CREATE CERTIFICATE cslgsrvg_cert WITH SUBJECT = 'cslgsrvg certificate for database mirroring'

This script executed without error and I can 'see' the cert under serverInfo database [ SSMS: serverInfo/Security/Certificates ]

C) However (!) -- when I tried to execute Step 5, the script fails. I get following error:

Cannot find the object "cslgsrvg_cert" because it does not exist or you do not have permission

I am logged in as User with 'sa' permissions.

I cannot get past this point. How can I get back 'on track'? Your guidance would be appreciated.

gary b

Addendum: Please note that I had SQL database mirroring fully operational when both Principal *and* Mirror servers were in the same domain. But recent network changes required use of a different SQL server as the mirror -- and that server is in a different domain. Hence, my interest in mirroring across domains.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009 - 2:53:16 PM - bass_player

Read The Tip

Hi,

The certificate has to be configured in the master database as you would first have to be authenticated on the server-instance level before the database level. This is the reason why the TSQL query only uses a single USE master command from steps #3 to #11. Step #5 asks you to create an endpoint, which is a server-instance securable. The reason the for the "certificate does not exist" error is because you are trying to grant permission to a server-instance level object using a database-level certificate. You can drop the certificate you've created on the serverInfo database and start all over again

I normally recommend to test this out using a test environment - a virtual machine or a physical lab - so as not to mess around with your production environment setup

Wednesday, April 22, 2009 - 6:47:14 AM - sfrvn

Read The Tip

Good morning, bass_player

I have deleted the certificate for serverInfo. I reran the CREATE CERTIFICATE script without USE serverInfo. When I then try to create the endpoint, I receive the following error message:

" Cannot find the object 'cslgsrvg_cert' because it does not exist or..."

[snip]

Added:

I ran query to display all certificates. The 'cslgsrvg_cert' was NOT listed.

I selected master database in SSMS and executed the CREATE CERT script. If I look under Security/Certificates, I can now see the cert listed.

I reran the CREATE ENDPOINT script and... it executed successfully ! So I am going to the next steps in your list.

The only thing I did differently (between unsuccessful and successful create endpoint scripts) was to run create cert script while master database was selected in SSMS GUI.

Will report back later.

gary b

Sunday, March 07, 2010 - 8:04:27 PM - ScottSpec	Read The Tip
Will this work on a Windows 2000 server? The reason I ask is that when I try to run the script, I get and error message saying: Msg 28060, Level 16, State 1, Line 5 The AES encryption algorithm is only supported on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 or later versions. Scott

Thursday, January 06, 2011 - 2:08:56 PM - Jag

Read The Tip

I found this artical hitting right on the nail.

I could run all the steps sucessfully till 5, however when I run the 6 step on Mirror Server (2nd server):

USE master
GO
ALTER DATABASE SET PARTNER = 'TCP://SQLServer.IPAddress:1433'

it throws me the following error:

The database "" is already enabled for database mirroring.

I restored the database and log on Mirror server WITH NORECOVERY mode prior to start implemeting the setting from this artical.

Please advise me if I am doing any thing wrong and missing anything.

Thanks

Jag

Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 11:32:46 PM - bass_player

Read The Tip

Hi Jag,

It seems that the database has been configured for database mirroring. If you've managed to go thru the process until the part where you successfully imported a certificate, simply restore the database backup (FULL plus LOG) on the mirror server and do steps #12 and #13. To be really sure, remove the mirroring session (if it does exist) prior to restoring the backups on the mirror

ALTER DATABASE <databaseName> SET PARTNER OFF

Wednesday, January 12, 2011 - 6:08:09 PM - Jag

Read The Tip

Thanks for the reply bass_player. That helped.

I am mirroring the server on seperate domain first time and running into issues. Here is the situation:

I can register the SQL servers sucessfully from both servers as follows:

From Principal to Mirror Server: Public IP:3947

From Mirror To Principal Server: Public IP\Local IP,1443

However when I try to run the following SQL from Principal Server I get the following error:

ALTER

DATABASE SET PARTNER = 'TCP://Public IP:3947';

The server network address "TCP://Public IP:3947" can not be reached or does not exist. Check the network address name and that the ports for the local and remote endpoints are operational.

I have the TCP/IP enabled on SQL Server Configuration on both servers.

One more thing, I can connect to Mirror server from Principal Server "Mirror" wizard using the following connection:

TCP://Public IP\SQLInstance,3947:3947

When I can connect to Mirror server through SQL Server Registration or through "Mirror" wizard, why can't I connect from alte database.

Can you please tell me what else setting I need or what am I missing?

Friday, January 14, 2011 - 4:56:45 PM - bass_player

Read The Tip

I am beginning to suspect that this is more of a networking issue than SQL Server. Try the following

1) Run a PING test vice versa. PING the IP address of the mirror from the principal, then, PING the IP address of the principal from the mirror. If this works, make sure that you have entries on your hosts file or DNS server for these servers and that you can PING via hostname/FQDN

2) Run a TELNET test to check if the port number that you assigned to the instance is open. The port numbers are the ones you assigned using the CREATE ENDPOINT command on Step #5 but for the mirror server. Do the TELNET test vice versa - from the principal to the mirror and from the mirror to the principal. You can also use the netstat command to see if the port is indeed open and listening

Friday, April 27, 2012 - 12:59:56 PM - Adam	Read The Tip
Very helpful....thanks!

Thursday, May 17, 2012 - 8:09:57 AM - Shamas	Read The Tip
Nice artilce. I have issues while start configuration of database mirroring accross domain but this artilce helps alot.

Monday, July 16, 2012 - 2:21:50 PM - andrismg	Read The Tip
Hi Edwin, I would do like what is the difference between ROLE = ALL and ROLE = PARTNER in the Principal Server and Mirror Server. This can slow my connection between the two server?

Friday, November 16, 2012 - 5:22:29 AM - Arunkumar

Read The Tip

Working like a charm.. Configured successfully WORKGROUP servers mirroring along with witness server.

Only problem i faced while creating the certificates. We need to specify the expiry dates.

Thanks alot. It saved my time.

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