Run SSMS as a domain user on a different domain

Run SSMS as a domain user on a different domain

Like a lot of companies that use Windows, my PC is connected to a domain and this is great when I’m connecting to the companies SQL Servers using Windows Credentials in SSMS because it “just works”™.

But sometimes I need to VPN to another domain and connect to SQL Servers on the other domain using Windows Credentials. SSMS doesn’t have an option for this so how do you do it?

Quite a few people have already blogged about this, however none of their methods worked for me going across domains. The problem is that my local computer can’t launch SSMS using remote credentials, because my PC doesn’t trust them.

When I thought all was lost I stumbled across an answer on dba.stackexchange by Aaron Bertrand. Basically you need to use the runas command with the /netonly parameter. This will launch SSMS using your current credentials, but any network traffic will appear as if it’s coming from the specified user. On my PC I need to run the following from a command window, or from the run menu:

runas /netonly /user:RemoteDomain\Greg.Dodd "C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft SQL Server130ToolsBinnManagementStudiossms.exe"

I could make this into a shortcut if I used it regularly. When I run this command I’m prompted to enter the password for the remote domain. Once I do that SSMS will be started:

You can see that the User name field is still disabled and still has my normal domain. If you look at Task Manager you can confirm that SSMS is running under my normal Dodd domain credentials.

However, when I connect to the remote server, magic happens and SSMS connects to the remote server on the remote domain using the credentials of the remote domain!

5 Comments

John Zabroski

Feb 2, 2019, 4:59 am

There is a far simpler solution. Register the connection using Registered Servers. Boom. Mind exploded?
The only downside is if you open SQL Server profiler, it will remember the connection UNTIL you close the default trace.

Greg

Feb 2, 2019, 5:37 am

John – I use Registered Servers frequently, but how do you edit the username and password for Windows Authentication? It’s always disabled for me and uses the credentials that SSMS is running as.

Karthick Muruganathan

Oct 10, 2021, 7:48 am

Is it still valid? In SQL Server 2019 version, its not working.

Greg

Oct 10, 2021, 11:00 am

Hi Karthick – it still works for me. The executable path has changed to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18\Common7\IDE\Ssms.exe. SSMS still shows the username that my PC is logged in as, but if I run SELECT SYSTEM_USER then SQL returns the user that I wanted to run as.

Rugbyball

Feb 2, 2022, 7:05 am

One thing I had to do to make this work.

I had to run this from an Elevated CMD.

Once I ran CMD as an Administrator then this worked like a charm.