Author: Tony Murray :: Monday, April 13, 2009 9:39 PM
When creating an AD LDS instance you are prompted to specify an account to use as the service account. At this point you can specify either the Network Service account or another account. Unless you have a particular need, you should choose the built-in Network Service account. If you opt for a domain-based service account you have to jump through a whole lot of hoops to get things working. Also, you typically end up giving your domain-based service account more permissions than are strictly necessary (as described later in this article). The Network Service account on the other hand provides an easy set up option and is a good choice from a security perspective given that the account has limited access to the local computer.
So why bother to use a domain-based service account at all? Well, if you have a number of services on your server all running under the context of the Network Service account there is potential for security compromise. In this scenario you may want to consider isolating the services from each other using dedicated service accounts.
What follows is a discussion of the steps required to configure AD LDS to use a domain-based service account.