The certificate chain was issued by an authority that is not trusted.

Question

Hello. I've got an existing server a few years old that we've never had any issues connecting to. However, all of a sudden when trying to create new connections we are getting the message "The certificate chain was issued by an authority that is not trusted.". This is happening in new versions of SSMS, Excel, and SSRS data sources.

I can get around this by adding "TrustServerCertificate=True" to the connection string on the client, but that's not really a long term solution. I did see this link, but again these are solutions for the client. I've already had to have some Excel users implement my workaround and it's not going over very well. It works, but nobody is very happy about it. Is there something I can do on the SQL box itself that will get me around this?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi @chrisrdba

Is there something I can do on the SQL box itself that will get me around this?

Normally, you should have a proper signed certificate, and your client needs to trust the CA that signed that certificate. So how about create a new certificate from your organization's CA and install it via SQL Server Configuration Manager.

Best regards,

Cosmog

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