Configuring Server Network Protocols and Net-Libraries

Before client computers can connect to the Database Engine, the server must be listening on an enabled protocol. For some editions of Microsoft SQL Server, you must enable the server network protocols before you can connect to SQL Server from another computer. For a description of the enable protocols for various installation configurations, see Default SQL Server Network Configuration.

Use the SQL Server Configuration Manager tool to:

  • Enable the server protocols on which the instance of SQL Server will listen.

  • Disable a server protocol that is no longer needed.

  • Specify or change the IP Addresses, TCP/IP Ports, and Named Pipes on which each Database Engine will listen.

  • Enable the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption for all of the enabled server protocols. The encryption is turned on or off for the entire enabled server protocols and you cannot specify encryption for a specific protocol.

    To use SSL encryption, you must install a valid certificate. For more information about certificates, see Encrypting Connections to SQL Server.

SQL Server Configuration Manager automatically detects if the instance of SQL Server you specify is on a failover cluster. If the instance is on a failover cluster, all of the information you specify for the instance is replicated to all nodes automatically. However, if you want to use encryption with a failover cluster, you must install the server certificate with the fully qualified DNS name of the virtual server on all nodes in the failover cluster. For example, if you have a two-node cluster, with nodes named test1.<your company>.com and test2.<your company>.com and a virtual SQL Server "virtsql", you need to get a certificate for "virtsql.<your company>.com" and install the certificate on both nodes. You can then check the ForceEncryption check box on the Protocols for <server> property box of SQL Server Network Configuration to configure your failover cluster for encryption.