[Quick Post] – SQL Express Reporting Services – HTTP redirects to HTTPS

A very quick post to start of 2015 but on a topic that had me scratching my head for a little while.

While not directly a VMware issue, enough products use SQL Express that it is definitely worth mentioning

Problem

Recently during an install I found I was unable to access SRSS. The process went something like this:

When trying to access the Report URL I would receive an invalid certificate error. If I clicked the continue, the “Page can not be displayed” message occurred.

Cause

After a fair bit of digging I came across the following blog post which details the cause

“This issue is happening due to the way SQL RS enables (and enforces) HTTPS on a machine.  If the SQL installer finds any certificates on the machine with the purpose set to * (anything) or server authentication it will set the SQL RS SecureConnectionLevel to 2, which requires HTTPS.  (This can happen in a few other scenarios too, but this is the common one)  So even though you may not have intended for RS to use SSL in this case, it is trying to enforce it.”

Solution

The actual solution was fairly easy.

1. Go to your Report Server directory location and locate the rsreportserver.config
2. Edit the file with notepad and locate the entry SecureConnectionLevel” Value=”2″
3. Change the current value (likely to be 2) to 0.

This should resolve the issue.

I hope this helps, and credit to Ewald Hofman for the blog article.