Distributor Administrative Link Security

For a Publisher to use a remote Distributor, the Publisher must be registered as a remote Publisher at that Distributor. The connection between a Publisher and a remote Distributor is a hybrid of a linked server and remote server. The connection uses the login distributor_admin. At the Distributor, the remote Publisher can be configured to be either trusted (that is, no password is required for the distributor_admin login) or nontrusted (that is, a password is required). Requiring an distributor_admin password further increases security at the Distributor by restricting access. Members of the sysadmin or db_owner roles who want to use a restricted Distributor must know the administrative link password. An incorrect distributor_admin password at the Publisher causes the installation of replication at the publisher to fail.

Warning Do not change the password for the distributor_admin manually. Always use either sp_changedistributor_password or SQL Server Enterprise Manager because password changes are then applied to local publications automatically. Changing the distributor_admin password manually causes publications using a local Distributor to fail.

To add or change a password on a Distributor

See Also