Changing the user account of the SharePoint applicaton pool returns the error “Cannot connect to the configuration database”

Question

I am trying to debug an issue regarding the proxy setting in web.config. Currentley it is set to:

  <system.net>
    <defaultProxy enabled="true" useDefaultCredentials="true">  
        <proxy bypassonlocal="true" proxyaddress="http://xx.xx.xx.xx:8080" />
    </defaultProxy> 
  </system.net>

On my local machine it works fine (Windows 7). It is using my user credditals and is getting through.

On the server I am getting the following error:

ProtocolError occured trying to complete the request. The server returned a status code of : ProxyAuthenticationRequired and the status description is : "Proxy Authentication Required ( The ISA Server requires authorization to fulfill the request. Access to the Web Proxy filter is denied. )"

I am trying to rule out an enviomental issue and show that it is a permission issue on the proxy server. Todo this I want to change my SharePoint locally to run under the same account as the server.

In IIS Ihave changed the application pool account to run under the same account as the server, I have given the account Owner perms on the content database. I have perofmred an IISreset (and a PC reboot) but when I go to the site I get:

Cannot connect to the configuration database.

What else could be going wrong to stop the application running?

Answer 1

Whatever ID the application pool is running as needs 1) proper permissions to the config database (see this info from Microsoft) 2) inclusion in the proper security groups on the local machine (these usually start with WSS_) and 3) permission to go through the proxy using a windows credential rather than a forms-style login. If you are in a large corporate environment, then I wish you luck getting a service account granted permission to go through the proxy.