Power BI data gateway can not access to on premise data source

[jjtom911]

Hi team,

I need some help with this data gateway issue and it is really annoying.

I need to setup the data gateway for my organization.

Intially I setup the gateway with my own login and credential and the gateway works fine.

However, the management asked me to use a specific account for that gateway and that is where the issue comes from.

I installed the enterprise gateway, used the specific account and the gateway was installed successfully.

However, when I try to add a SQL server data source under that gateway, I kept getting error message saying:

"We reached the data gateway, but the gateway can't access the on-premises data source"

However, if I changed the account used in the gateway to my own login, I am able to add data source under that gateway.

I have checked the specific login and make sure it has access to the SQL server. The only difference between my login and the specific one is that my login is Power BI admin while that account is only a normal user.

Is this where the issue comes from? How can I fix it?

Kind regards,

Tom Sun

[jjtom911 · Accepted solution]

After 4 hours spent on this issue, finally I figured it out and made it work.

The main issue in this case is the service account specified in Power BI data gateway needs to have local admin authorization to start the service on that server, where the gateway is installed on.

For my own login credential, that one has local admin authorization and it can start the service.

The other login is not the local admin, so it can not start the service.

In addition, you need to change the service account specified in the Power BI gateway installation and signed into Gateway with that credential. Then you can add data source under that gateway to make it work.

I just hope Microsoft can have more documentation about these details to save us a lot of time.

Kind regards,

Tom Sun