Do you get a Login dialog from your client machine when connecting to SSRS using all but the IP-address?

Background

I’ll be leaving my current client soon after been there for more then a year. As a final test the person at the customer that shadowed me during all this time had to install a complete TFS environment including build server without my help.

And he did it, which I personally take as the best compliment as a coach and consultant leaving the assignment. Anyway my job in this final test was to verify that everything was working as expected.

Challenge

When I reached the verification part in my tests where I finally tried to connect to SSRS from my client machine I got an Login Dialog every time except when I used the IP-address of the SSRS machine.

As a seasoned installer of TFS and SSRS I thought I had seen all the silly errors you can get configuring SSRS so instantly I got the feeling that something was rotten outside the SSRS box. And there was some issues with the DNS that were outside the control of the SSRS box. After almost 1½ days (I kid you not) I stumbled upon the solution…

Solution

Someone had added a

<RSWindowsNegotiate/>

tag to the authentication types section in the rsreportserver.config file located in your SSRS installation path. As we’re not using kerberos in this installation a quick delete of the

<RSWindowsNegotiate/>

tag fixed our issue. This is how our authentication types section looked like after the change.

<AuthenticationTypes>
  <RSWindowsNTLM/>
</AuthenticationTypes>

Now this configuration was probably done by the IT-ops that delivered the machine in the first place but investigation will continue to exclude my fellow shadower from blame.

Cheers,

Hugo