Symptom(s):

  • Attempting to connect to the AD RMS cluster name in the Active Directory Rights Management Services Console results in the following error.
  • The following Active Directory Rights Management Services dialog may appear.
    A connection with the AD RMS cluster "rms.contoso.com" could not be established because of the following reason:
    The request failed with HTTP status 401: Unauthorized.
    Ensure that your connection is the correct protocol, such as HTTP or HTTPS, and that the port number is correct.
  • Attempting at access https://rms.contoso.com/_wmcs/licensing/license.asmx from the RMS server results in several logon prompts then the  HTTP Error 401.1.

Cause: By default the server cannot connect to itself using a non-host name.


Resolution: Enable the following registry settings on the RMS server and reboot.

  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters
    Name:  DisableStrictNameChecking
    Type:  DWORD
    Value: 1
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
    Name:  DisableLoopbackCheck
    Type:  DWORD
    Value: 1

Addition information on DisableStrictNameChecking & DisableLoopbackCheck: KB 926642