Is it possible to reference data using mapped network drives instead of UNC path in arcgis server services?

Question

Has anyone managed to create a service using datasets referenced via a mapped network drive letter on windows? ESRI support claims it is not "supported", but I want to make sure it is actually not possible or just "not supported" as in "not recommended".

the permissions are properly set up for my SOC account, since the services created using UNC path to reference datasets are working fine. I guess it all comes down to making the ArcGISSOC account understand those letters. I think I tried logging on as the ArcGISSOC and mapping the drives manually, but it doesn't seem to work.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Answer 1

Mapped network drive are profile specific and only exist with an interactive logon.

Since it is the ArcGISSOC account accessing the data, a mapped network drive cannot exist since that account never logs in interactively and the mapped network drives for the user account does not carry over to that SOC account.

Although I haven't tested this, you may be able to get mapped network drives to work if you leave an active logon session for the ArcGISSOC account and create mapped network drives for it.

Also here is evidence that a windows service needs to be specifically created to access mapped network drives. It's possible that this hasn't been done for the ArcGIS SOC monitor service spawning ArcSOC.exe processes.

Answer 2

You should use the methods in this section of help to manage services and resources.
esri help

Answer 3

Warning: I've never tried this so I don't know if it will work with ESRI services nor if this will cause black ESRI helicopters to raid your site ;-). I have done it for other services and I know it can work but I make no warranties. I welcome other more knowledgeable ESRI users to share their experience.

That being said, let's get into the details.

@Thomas who answered before me is right: mapped network drives are not accessibile to Windows services.

But on the other hand Windows services can be setup to access the UNC path to which the drive is mapped. For instance: drive Z: is mapped to \\someserver\someshare

A windows service can't reference Z: because it doesn't have a logon session so no drive mappings are possible or recognized. But the service can still access \\someserver\someshare if the service runs under a user account that can access the share.

Usually this is achieved by going into the Services control panel and changing the user account under which the service logs on. Typically this is LocalSystem and you would then change it to something like DOMAIN\USER (or SOMESERVER\SOMEUSER) where DOMAIN\USER is an account that has access to \\someserver\someshare.

If the ESRI service is already started as a regular user (ie not LocalSystem) then things are much easier. Simply create a user with the same username and password on someserver and assign the appropriate privileges so that it can access someshare.