Windows NT user or group 'DOMAIN\USER' not found? - sql-server

Question

I am trying to create users on a SQL server from an Active Directory group as an application I am working with does not natively support Windows authentication and relies upon individual logins being created on the SQL server, as application level permissions are managed in the application rather than using SQL roles. Due to this, each user that is to access the application needs their own user creating against the SQL instance that the applications database is on, so that the user can then be assigned individual permissions within the application.
I am reading the list of users from the Active Directory group we have designated using the following;
exec master..xp_logininfo 'domain\groupname', 'members'
This returns output similar to the following;
account name type privilege mapped login name permission path
DOMAIN\USER user user DOMAIN\USER DOMAIN\GROUPNAME
For the most part, the users returned in this list can be created on the SQL instance without any drama. I am creating the users as SQL accounts using sp_grantlogin in the first instance, before moving on to allow each new login access to the application database. However, a handful of users are being reported as not existing. I get the following error as a result of running sp_grantlogin;
Msg 15401, Level 11, State 1, Procedure sp_grantlogin, Line 49
Windows NT user or group 'DOMAIN\USER' not found. Check the name again.
Obviously in the above error message, I have removed the actual username. Why would xp_logininfo return a user that cannot be created with sp_grantlogin? Is there anything obvious that I am missing?

Answer 1

This just means that the user is not in the Administrator group. If your problem is like mine where your Active Directory in on a different Virtual Machine, and your SQL Server on another. And you have joined Active Directory Domain to your SQL Server Virtual Machine, then you have to do the following on your SQL Server Virtual MAchine.
Navigate to Tools --> Computer Management.
The windows opens, Expand System Tools --> Local Users and Groups.
Click on Groups and you should see a list of groups to the right
column of the window.
Double click Administrator, a new window opens and you will notice that the linked User is not under there.
Click Add, new window opens. Here, under location, you may chose to change
location of your domain.
Click Advanced, a log in prompt opens, simply log in with you administrator Virtual Machine account.
Click Find Now with all fields as is. From a list of users presented, double click the user imported from Active Directory and click Ok.

Answer 2

Do you change the case of the login name before using sp_grantlogin?
If you have a case sensitive server collation, then the case of the AD user nneds to be specified in exactly the right case.
You can find the server collation by doing:
select serverproperty('collation')
If you do have a case sensitive server collation, and you don't mess with the case, there is probably a mismatch with what xp_logininfo is returning and the actual case in AD. In which case, try creating the user with variations on the case.
If none of this applies, look into the account. Is it disabled, can you log in with it, etc.. If suser_sid() returns null, then there must be some kind of problem with it.

Answer 3

I can give you my advice from doing this in Windows 7 although it may not be relevant.
The problem I had was that I had renamed the user account in the Windows UI. The name appeared correctly in Windows, and I used the new name to log on. But behind the scenes it was still using the old name which was what SQL Server was looking for.
I struggled with this for HOURS before I finally worked it out!!

Answer 4

I have also faced this error for users, who was:
created in AD
granted some SQL permissions
renamed in AD
Then I try to add this new, renamed user account name to the same server/database, error Msg 15401, Level 11, State 1, Procedure sp_grantlogin, Line 49 appears.
I have followed steps in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324321/en-us and this command returned old user account name befor rename:
SELECT name FROM syslogins WHERE sid = SUSER_SID ('YourDomain\YourLogin')
it returned
YourDomain\OldLogin
after executing
exec sp_revokelogin 'YourDomain\OldLogin'
problem was fixed, sp_grantlogin now works ok.
PS as another test method I suggest running sp_grantlogin remotely, from another server. It may succeed to.

Answer 5

I had a very similar case, the same error code 15401, but in this case what I was doing was adding users from the Domain, into a group in the server where I had SQL; so then just add the group to SQL engine with the same ROLE.
USE [master]
GO
CREATE LOGIN [localhost\Administrators] FROM WINDOWS WITH DEFAULT_DATABASE=[master]
Msg 15401, Level 16, State 1, Line 3
Windows NT user or group 'localhost\Administrators' not found. Check the name again.
Then in the link PRB: Use BUILTIN\Group to Grant Access to Predefined Windows NT Groups
I found the issue, so the solution was:
USE [master]
GO
CREATE LOGIN [BUILTIN\Administrators] FROM WINDOWS WITH DEFAULT_DATABASE=[master]
GO
ALTER SERVER ROLE [sysadmin] ADD MEMBER [BUILTIN\Administrators]
GO
Command(s) completed successfully.
I believe this is great to diminish the number of login accounts, and have a more manageable number of users assigned to the roles in the SQL server.

Answer 6

If you're using a non-English language, or have been using one on your machine, you might have to localize the user details you're trying to use.
E.g. [NT AUTHORITY\Network Service] on a Swedish machine is [NT INSTANS\Nätverkstjänst].
Spent hours trying to figure out why BUILTIN\, NT AUTHORITY\, <MachineName>\ etc. didn't work.

Answer 7

My issue was the length of the login. In Domain\User syntax, Windows uses the so called pre-Windows 2000 syntax. That syntax limits the length of the username to 20 characters. You have to truncate the username to the first 20 characters and then it should work, like so:
Domain\Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Becomes
Domain\Abcdefghijklmnopqrst