Change administration-account passwords in SharePoint 2013

Published: April 23, 2013

Summary: Learn about how to keep account passwords synchronized for sites and site content for SharePoint 2013.

Applies to:  SharePoint Server 2013 | SharePoint Foundation 2013 

Certain SharePoint 2013 services and features must be associated with a Windows account to run. If the account has a password, that is, if the account is anything other than the Local System account, the Local Service account, or the Network Service account then the password in SharePoint 2013 must be updated when the account's password changes.

There are two ways to keep passwords synchronized between Windows and SharePoint 2013: automatically and manually. To synchronize passwords automatically you can register managed accounts and configure SharePoint 2013 to change the managed accounts' passwords according to a schedule. SharePoint 2013 automatically generates a new password, updates the password in Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), and propagates the changes to other servers in the farm. For more information about managed accounts, see Plan automatic password change in SharePoint 2013.

Warning:
Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012 include managed accounts at the operating system level. Do not use Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012 managed accounts. They are incompatible with SharePoint 2013 managed accounts.

We recommend that you use SharePoint 2013 managed accounts when you can. You can use managed accounts to control the passwords for the following things:

• Central administration

• Timer service

• Service applications

• Application pools

When managed accounts are unsuitable, you must change passwords in SharePoint 2013 manually when the passwords change in AD DS. Passwords must be changed manually for the following things:

• SQL Server services

• The default content access account

• In SharePoint Server 2013, credentials that are used to access external data sources and are stored in the Secure Store service application. For additional information about how to change credentials to access external data sources, see Configure the Secure Store Service in SharePoint 2013.