Question

I’m having a difficult time finding information on how to get RavenDB to work on a network. Within the same network, I can have an instance of my app running, and it will show data from my RavenDB. However, when I try to write data, I get a 401 Unauthorized exception.

What is the correct way to set up a RavenDB to be accessed over the network?

Right now, I have this in Raven.Server.exe.config, which is just a short-term solution:

<add key="Raven/AnonymousAccess" value="All" />

What I don’t understand, is that the RavenDB web site says to use something like this:

<connectionStrings>
  <add name="RavenDb" 
       connectionString="Url=http://serverName:8080;user=user;password=password"/>
</connectionStrings>

Ok, that’s great for the application that’s running, but how do I set the RavenDB server to allow that user and password? Is that just the wrong way to do it (somehow setting the RavenDB config file to allow those credentials)? If that’s wrong, how am I supposed to define credentials on the server side?

Edit: Here are my attempts and results:

I’m running RavenDB by double-clicking Raven.Server.exe.

Scenario 1

Client app.Config:

  <connectionStrings>
    <add name="RavenDb" connectionString="Url = http://server:8080;domain=Xx;user=Xx\user;password=pw"/>
  </connectionStrings>

DocumentStore Setup:

DocumentStore documentStore = new DocumentStore();
documentStore.ConnectionStringName = "RavenDb";
documentStore.Initialize();

Save Operation:

Session.Store(objectToSave);

Result:
“The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized.”

Scenario 2

Client app.config:

<add key="databaseUrl" value="http://server:8080"/>

DocumentStore Setup:

string databaseUrl = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["databaseUrl"];            
DocumentStore documentStore = new DocumentStore();
documentStore.Url = databaseUrl;
documentStore.Initialize();

Save Operation:

Session.Store(objectToSave);

Result:
“The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized.”
Inner exception: “The target principal name is incorrect”

Answer 1

Create a local user on the machine RavenDB runs on and use any credentials you’d like. Then assign read/write permissions for the /Data directory (and the /Tenants directory if needed) to this user.

If you’re running RavenDB as a service or standalone application, remote auth should work with the (windows)users credentials. If you’re running on IIS, please make sure you have Windows Authentication enabled (disabled by default!).