Question: Are read and write permissions to the SharePoint content database sufficient for the Metalogix Extensions Web Service to perform migration? (4225876)

As you may know, the Metalogix Extensions Web Service requires read and write permissions to the Content Database, according to a Microsoft KB article (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/935751. However, this is only a solution if you have encountered the message "Unhandled Exception: system.IO.FileNotFoundException" when using the SharePoint object model. We have found that few users have reported this issue, since the Web Service account is usually granted the sysadmin server role, which has complete control over all database functions.

After some internal testing we have determined that the Web Service installing account requires more than read and write permissions to function without database errors.

1."db_owner" rights to the SharePoint Content Database is required.

If the Web Service account does not have the db_owner right to the SharePoint Content Database, Metalogix Content Matrix will not be able to migrate list items using the Web Service, and may receive one of the following errors:

4/19/2010 7:13:53 PM Error copying list item: 1/1 (id: 1, title: Get Started with Windows SharePoint Services!): Service Error: [MLSPService could not add items: MLSPServiceMethods.AddListItems() Failed: Cannot open database "WSS_Content" requested by the login. The login failed.

4/20/2010 10:21:01 AM Error copying list item: 1/2 (id: 1, title: Get Started with Windows SharePoint Services!): Service Error: [MLSPService could not add items: MLSPServiceMethods.AddListItems() Failed: Operation aborted (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80004004 (E_ABORT))

2."db_owner" or "WSS_Content_Application_Pools" rights to the SharePoint Admin Content Database is required.

If the Web Service installing account does not have db_owner or WSS_Content_Application_Pools rights to the SharePoint_AdminContent, Metalogix Content Matrix will not be able to create/paste site collections, and will receive an error.

With these cases in mind we have determined that the Metalogix Extensions Web Service account should be granter the db_owner permission rights, at a minimum, to allow Metalogix Content Matrix to correctly migrate content to the target SharePoint instance.