If I delete On Premises data gateway Will I lose credentials for data sources.

[Nch0000]

I have to uninstall on premises gateway and I am trying to not lose the credentials for the data sources I use for power bi reports,
If I am not able to migrate the gateway to other machine, am I gonna lose credentials If I unistall this one and Install new One? 
I can not Migrate it Since I lost the recovery key, But I think the recovery key should be on the machine on which the gateway is installed right?

[lbendlin · Accepted solution]

You have to keep the physical and logical parts of the gateway separate.

Uninstalling a gateway service from a VM is purely physical. It has no impact whatsoever on the gateway definitions (including the connections and credentials). Of course you will mess with the load balancer, but that can be mitigated by temporarily disabling the cluster member you are doing maintenance on.

The moment you get in in trouble is when you remove the reference to the anchor gateway from the Power BI Service gateway admin side - at that point the entire gateway will be logically removed and all connections will be lost, irretrievably.

[v-jianpeng-msft · Accepted solution]

Your ideas is so great lbendlin

Hi, @Nch0000 

If we uninstall the gateway directly on the machine, we will still be able to keep our gateway connection in the Power BI service:

After we uninstall the gateway in the computer, it will show offline:

We can recover this data gateway in another computer via recoverkey:

Migrate, restore, or take over an on-premises data gateway | Microsoft Learn

If we remove this gateway in Power BI Service:

As you can see, the SQL Server gateway connection we established with this gateway above will all be deleted, and all connection credentials will be lost.

You mentioned that you forgot your gateway recoverkey, below there is a recovery of your data source credentials to the new gateway without the need for recoverkey:

LOST POWER BI GATEWAY RECOVERY KEY? NO PROBLEM - Ruki's Blog (rukiatu.com)

Mainly through PowerShell to bind the gateway connection of the old gateway into the new gateway. You can learn about these PowerShell cmdlets through the links below.

Invoke-PowerBIRestMethod (MicrosoftPowerBIMgmt.Profile) | Microsoft Learn

Datasets - Bind To Gateway In Group - REST API (Power BI Power BI REST APIs) | Microsoft Learn

Best Regards

Jianpeng Li

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[lbendlin · Accepted solution]

You have to keep the physical and logical parts of the gateway separate.

Uninstalling a gateway service from a VM is purely physical. It has no impact whatsoever on the gateway definitions (including the connections and credentials). Of course you will mess with the load balancer, but that can be mitigated by temporarily disabling the cluster member you are doing maintenance on.

The moment you get in in trouble is when you remove the reference to the anchor gateway from the Power BI Service gateway admin side - at that point the entire gateway will be logically removed and all connections will be lost, irretrievably.