KB-1944 How to configure Windows Authentication for SQL Server

Purpose

There are two types of authentication for SQL Server: SQL Authentication and Windows Authentication. Windows Authentication is sometimes referred to as Integrated Authentication.

Windows Authentication will use the same user who started the application server to log into SQL Server.

SQL Authentication uses a plain text username and an encrypted password in tomcat-resources.xml to authenticate when connecting to SQL Server.

Note: This Knowledge Base article should be used for guidance on Appian configuration steps only. Additional information on configuring Windows Authentication should be discussed with Server Administration and Database Administration teams.

Instructions

To configure Windows Authentication:

Remove the lines for username and password from tomcat-resources.xml.
Modify the URL to include "integratedsecurity=true" like so: url="jdbc:sqlserver://<host_name>:1433;databaseName=<database_name>;integratedSecurity=true"
Add the SQL Server driver sqljdbc42.jar to <APPIAN_HOME>\tomcat\apache-tomcat\lib\
Add sqljdbc_auth.dll to <APPIAN_HOME>\tomcat\apache-tomcat\bin\
Start Tomcat.

Affected Versions

This article applies to Appian 18.4 and later on Windows.

Note: Windows authentication will not work on Linux because it uses the service account of the Windows user who started the application server to log into SQL Server.

Last Reviewed: May 2019