Forum Discussion
Credentials greyed out - SQL Server Exposed to the Internet
Hi pey1,
We are grateful for your participation in the Microsoft Fabric Community forum.
Since Power BI Service doesn't let you set credentials directly for a non-cloud SQL Server, it needs a gateway for scheduled refreshes. Here's the best way to set that up:- Install one On-premises Data Gateway per client tenant, each on a separate VM or machine (can be lightweight cloud or client-hosted).
- Point each gateway to your central SQL Server (just make sure it’s locked down with IP allow-listing and SSL).
- In each tenant’s Power BI Service, register the gateway, set up the data source, and plug in the right credentials for that client’s database.
- Use SQL logins or database permissions to make sure clients can only access their own data.
- You can’t install more than one gateway on the same machine anymore (Microsoft blocked that), so each tenant needs their own box or VM.
Credential Option Is Greyed Out - Once you publish your dataset, Power BI sees that your SQL Server isn’t a cloud-native source, so it disables the credential box. At that point, only a gateway can handle auth and refresh.
If this post helps, then please consider Accepting it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.
Thanks.
I have a SQL Server hosted on a VM Can you please provide more details? Where is the VM located? On-Premise? Azure? Elsewhere?
It's hosted with servers australia - not sure that helps as even though its publicly accessible without a VPN, Power BI service sees it as an on-premise source needing a gateway.
The simple answer is that you can not create a DW solution with many client databases on a SQL server running on a VM shared across many client tenants without having an expensive solution of multiple VMS running a gateway on each VM—so stupid and not very elegant from Microsoft at all!