Linked Server Password

  • I`m trying to find out the method being used to encrypt password for linked servers. I checked out sp_addlinkedsrvlogin which shows me some interesting parts

    update master.dbo.sysxlogins

    set xstatus = (xstatus & ~192) | @status,

    xdate2 = getdate(),

    password = convert(varbinary(256), encrypt(@rmtpassword)) ...

    Passwords for linked servers seems to be stored in master..sysxlogins but the lenght of password hash( or whatever is it) depends on actual password lenght, it`s really not like a passwords being used for local SQL server via pwdencrypt() function

    0xC4325FA0E20C36E5BA772832 -- here is password i have for my linked server which is 123123 in plaintext

    So i`m trying to repeat this query "select convert(varbinary(256), encrypt(123123))" and i`m getting a different value than i have in master..sysxlogins for my linked server >> 0x310032003300310032003300

    Can someone tell me what encryption being used there and is there any way to decrypt those pw`s?

  • funny, I found myself doing almost the exact same thing. We've got a linked server configured on an old (and soon to be retired..) box. We're trying to pull data from that system, but we can't find the password for the account.

    The linked server still works and I've been using OPENQUERY somewhat sucessfully to pull data across, but I'd still like to decrypt the password.

    I found this little app: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/vbscript/SQLServerPasswords.aspx

    but it seems to work only w/ the standard SQL encrypted passwords, not these shorter/variable-length things it's using for non-SQL linked servers.

    So far, I've created another linked server using the password "test", hoping to make some sense out of the values in sysxlogins and/or the data I picked up via. a packet sniffer. FWIW, this is on a SQL 2000 machine connecting to some sort of custom Informix UniData thing via ODBC... *shrug*

    If you find anything, PLMK!

    -chris

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