Hi I'm a developer so I'm not really good on networks. On my dev machine I have 2 VM one a "client" Windows 7 and one a server running Server 2008 with SP and SQL on it. I originally set the server up on it's own domain following Sahil Malik's SharePoint book i.e. I don't know much about domains. However when I try to connect to it from the Windows 7 machine with management studio it can't find the server. When I switch the domain firewall off on the server it works. I've looked in the security event logs and I can see the firewall blocking the attempted login. It says "Account failed to logon" and sees my "client" machine as being in a different domain. Any ideas on how to override this. I need the SQL/SharePoint Server to be in a domain when I set it up but now I'd like to connect to it from other machines that aren't in that test domain. Chris

Are you sure that the needed ports are opened? Have a look to this Microsoft article named "How do I open the firewall port for SQL Server on Windows Server 2008?" This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees , and confers no rights. Microsoft Student Partner Microsoft Certified Professional Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator: Security Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer: Security Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuration Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure, Configuration

On your SQL/SharePoint server add the IP from your development machine (or it's VM's if they have different IP's) to the firewall whitelist. Just add a rule that allows any connection coming from the IP of your development machine or run this from the command prompt (as Administrator): netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Development machine" dir=in remoteip=192.168.0.10 action=allow I've taken 192.168.0.10 as an example IP address, it is likely to be different in your scenario. If you're not sure, type ipconfig in the command prompt to see the IP address(es) assigned to your network interface card.

You may also see this as well http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc646023.aspx http://www.virmansec.com/blogs/skhairuddin

Please post your query on sharepoint forum. Thanks

Are you sure that the needed ports are opened? Have a look to this Microsoft article named "How do I open the firewall port for SQL Server on Windows Server 2008?" This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees , and confers no rights. Microsoft Student Partner Microsoft Certified Professional Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator: Security Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer: Security Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuration Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure, Configuration On the support page at the above link, there is a downloadable "Mr. FixIt" tool. The article claims that it applies to all versions Windows Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2008 R2. That claim apparently does not apply to the downloadable tool. Run the tool on Windows Server and the installer informs you that the tool is not supported on the OS, and the installer aborts the installation of the tool. Rudy =8^DMark the best replies as answers. "Fooling computers since 1971." http://thesharpercoder.blogspot.com/