Sensitive Parameter - That Old Chesnut Again!

  • Okay, so a couple of weeks ago I was working on a project that has a database password as a sensitive parameter. All was fine with debugging until I had to leave the project and come back to it. Now I can't debug the thing again, it's driving me insane. I only have the 1 package in the solution and I have set the security to Encrypt Sensitive with User Key. Despite this it will not remember the password for the database connection. I have also set up a sensitive package parameter to store the password and set the connection manager to use the parameter. If I open and close the package or project the password remains in the parameter but when I run the package in the IDE it fails. If I open the connection manager designer the test fails unless I re-enter the password in the designer, but as soon as I close it again it's gone. I don't understand why the package is not using the parameter value at run-time.

    If I deploy the package and set the password the connection works fine. The problem is I have an error in my code somewhere that I can't debug. Has anyone got any clue how to sort this please.

  • According to this link https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms141747.aspx only you can open the package. For all others, the sensitive information is replaced with blanks.

    In my experience, when I have had to store connection details e.g. for an external database or website, the connection details are stored in an encrypted database table and retrieved at run time using SSIS configurations and I never store any connection or other sensitive information in the package itself

    Jez

  • When I deploy the package it does not contain any sensitive information, that's the whole point of having sensitive parameters. When you deploy by Project Deployment the Deployment Wizard changes the setting on the deployment from Encrypt With User Key to Don't Save Sensitive. My point is that my package would not remember the password during design time.

  • I have since found the solution to this problem. The server I was deploying to was not on the same domain so I could not use the deployment wizard. This meant I had to deploy by ipsac file. The problem with this method is that you have to change the security setting manually for the project and and packages within it before you build to the Live configuration.

    The gotcha is if you forget to follow these steps to carry on further development:

    1. Swap the environment back to Development in the IDE

    2. Change the security setting back to Encrypt Sensitive With User Key

    3. Build the solution

    I am more used to working within 1 domain, so it's been a bit of a learning curve.

    I'm also not sure about step 2 above, I have had some success in leaving security set to Don't Save Sensitive, but it doesn't always work, but it does always seem to work if you carry out Step 2

  • In my last job we had multiple developers and everything was saved to Team Foundation Server, so we had use Don't Save Sensitive, but we rarely had problems like I have experienced lately.

Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply