While installing Single Sign On (SSO) as a part of vSphere 5.1 for a recent consulting gig, I ran into a new issue.

After entering the database information, the installer returned an error that stated “Error 29114. Cannot connect to DB.” The first thing that I checked was the database itself. I made sure that I had entered the host information and the database name “RSA” correctly. I then verified that the “RSA_USER” and the “RSA_DBA” accounts had the corrected permissions as stated by the vSphere 5.1 Installation Guide. The next thing that I checked was the ODBC connection to make sure that it was successful and everything was entered correctly.

After a little bit of research and running “netstat”, I decided to check the SQL Server Configuration Manager to verify that the TCP Port used for the Database matched what the installer was using. BEHOLD! It did not, it was using the default of dynamic TCP ports. Once I changed the TCP Port under the SQL Server Network Configuration to 1433 and tried to run the installer again I was successful.