September 5, 2013 at 9:55 am
We have a SQL Server 2008 R2 database in a very locked down (govt) environment. I am unsure what features have been disabled in Windows or SQL Server, and that is probably next on my list to continue investigation but here is the general gist of the issue:
We are trying to enable transparent database encryption. In doing so we are attempting to create the master key:
create master key encryption by password ='PUT THE PASSWORD HERE';
This appears to create the master key HOWEVER it also causes Windows to pop up a message to the gist of "Windows has encountered a Severe error and will shutdown." About 60 seconds later the system is rebooting. The windows application and system event logs don't really seem to shed any light on this issue.
We are able to drop the key without crashing after the restart, however I am afraid that if this crash does occur when creating it something isn't happening correctly and I would be worried about actually encrypting each of our databases. My initial thought was something in the Windows Data Protection API that is encrypting the master key is causing the error, either because it is locked down to prevent usage or something to that affect.
September 5, 2013 at 10:15 am
So it turns out that the system we were running this on utilizes a strong password filter library (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms721766(v=vs.85).aspx) and that for whatever reason we believe the password used should have met the strong password requirements it was still causing a fatal error. We disabled the feature in the registry and the error went away.
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