Active Roles 8.1.3 - Administration Guide

Symptoms

When promoting SQL Server to Publisher, or adding it as a Subscriber to the existing Publisher, the operation fails with the following error: An alias cannot be used for replication. Use the name of the SQL Server instance.

Solution

This error is usually caused by one of the following reasons:

Incorrect server name. The computer that is running SQL Server has been renamed, or SQL Server has lost its name.
Administration Service identifies SQL Server by alias. An alias was used to specify SQL Server when installing the Administration Service.

Incorrect server name

To isolate and resolve this problem, run the following two queries on the SQL Server instance affected by this issue. Copy these queries “as is,” without making any substitutions for the servername parameter:

select @@servername
select serverproperty('servername')

If select @@servername returns a non-null value that is different from the value returned by the second query, run the following SQL script:

exec sp_dropserver '<oldname>', 'droplogins'
exec sp_addserver '<newname>', 'local'

In this script, replace:

<oldname> with the value returned by select @@servername
<newname> with the value returned by select serverproperty('servername')

If select @@servername returns NULL, run the following SQL script:

exec sp_addserver '<newname>', 'local'

In this script, replace <newname> with the value returned by select serverproperty('servername').

For these changes to take effect, you must restart SQL Server. You can restart SQL Server by using SQL Server Configuration Manager:

In the Console tree, select SQL Server Services.
In the Details pane, right-click the SQL Server instance to restart, and then click Restart.

Administration Service identifies SQL Server by alias

The Administration Service must be configured to identify SQL Server by computer name, rather than using a client alias. Otherwise, when attempting to make SQL Server the Publisher or a Subscriber, you encounter the error “An alias cannot be used for replication. Use the name of the SQL Server instance.”

To avoid this problem, you may need to reinstall the Administration Service. When installing the Administration Service, use the following syntax to identify SQL Server:

computername — for the default instance

In this syntax, computername is the (short) NetBIOS name of the computer running SQL Server.
computername\instancename — for a named instance

In this syntax:
- computername is the (short) NetBIOS name of the computer running SQL Server.
- instancename is the name of a SQL Server named instance.

Using regular expressions

When configuring search filter conditions or property validation criteria, you may need to use regular expressions. This section helps you learn the syntax you must use in regular expressions.

A regular expression is a pattern of text that consists of ordinary characters (for example, letters a to z) and special characters, known as metacharacters. It serves as a template for matching a character pattern to the string value being validated.

The following table contains a list of metacharacters and their behavior in the context of regular expressions that can be used to create search filter conditions and property validation criteria in Active Roles. To match an exact metacharacter, precede the character with a backslash (\).

Table 121: Metacharacters in the context of regular expressions
Character	Definition
\	Marks the next character as a special character, a literal, or an octal escape. For example, n matches the character n; \n matches a new line character. The sequence \\ matches \ and \( matches (.
^	Matches the position at the beginning of the input string.
$	Matches the position at the end of the input string.
*	Matches the preceding sub-expression zero or more times. For example, zo* matches z and zoo. * is equivalent to {0,}.
+	Matches the preceding sub-expression one or more times. For example, zo+ matches zo and zoo, but not z. + is equivalent to {1,}.
?	Matches the preceding sub-expression zero or one time. For example, do(es)? matches the do in do and does. ? is equivalent to {0,1}.
{n}	n is a nonnegative integer. Matches the preceding sub-expression exactly n times. For example, o{2} does not match the o in Bob, but matches the two o’s in food.
{n,}	n is a nonnegative integer. Matches the preceding sub-expression at least n times. For example, o{2,} does not match the o in Bob, but matches all the o’s in foooood. o{1,} is equivalent to o+. o{0,} is equivalent to o*.
{n,m}	m and n are nonnegative integers, where n <= m. Matches the preceding sub-expression at least n and at most m times. For example, o{1,3} matches the first three o’s in fooooood. o{0,1} is equivalent to o?. Note that there cannot be spaces between the comma and the numbers.
?	When this character immediately follows any of the other quantifiers (*, +, ?, {n}, {n,}, {n,m}), the matching pattern is non-greedy. A non-greedy pattern matches as little of the searched string as possible, whereas the default greedy pattern matches as much of the searched string as possible. For example, in the string oooo, o+? matches a single o, while o+ matches all o’s.
.	Matches any single character except \n. To match any character including the \n, use a pattern such as [.\n].
( )	Groups one or more regular expressions to establish a logical regular expression consisting of sub-expressions. Used to override the standard precedence of certain operators. To match parentheses characters ( ), use $ or $.
x\|y	Matches either x or y. For example, z\|food matches z or food. (z\|f)ood matches zood or food.
[xyz]	A character set. Matches any one of the enclosed characters. For example, [abc] matches the a in plain.
[^xyz]	A negative character set. Matches any character not enclosed. For example, [^abc] matches the p in plain.
[a-z]	A range of characters. Matches any character in the specified range. For example, [a-z] matches any lowercase alphabetical character in the range a to z.
[^a-z]	A negative range of characters. Matches any character not in the specified range. For example, [^a-z] matches any character not in the range a to z.
\b	Matches a word boundary, that is, the position between a word and a space. For example, er\b matches the er in never but not the er in verb.
\B	Matches a non-word boundary. For example, er\B matches the er in verb but not the er in never.
\cx	Matches the control character indicated by x. For example, \cM matches a Control-M or carriage return character. The value of x must be in the range of A-Z or a-z. If not, c is assumed to be a literal c character.
\d	Matches a digit character. Equivalent to [0-9].
\D	Matches a non-digit character. Equivalent to [^0-9].
\s	Matches any white space character including space, tab, form-feed, etc. Equivalent to [ \f\n\r\t\v].
\S	Matches any non-white space character. Equivalent to [^ \f\n\r\t\v].
\w	Matches any word character including underscore. Equivalent to [A-Za-z0-9_].
\W	Matches any non-word character. Equivalent to [^A-Za-z0-9_].
\xn	Matches n, where n is a hexadecimal escape value. Hexadecimal escape values must be exactly two digits long. For example, \x41 matches A. Allows ASCII codes to be used in regular expressions.

Examples of regular expressions

The following table includes some examples of regular expressions and matches.

Table 122: Examples of regular expressions
Expression	Matches	Does not match
st.n	Austin and Boston	Webster
st[io]n	Austin and Boston	Stanton
st[^io]n	Stanton	Boston or Austin
^boston	Boston	South Boston or North Boston Harbor
ston$	Boston and Galveston	Stonewall
sea\|side	Seattle and Seaside and Oceanside	Seoul or Sidney
dal(l\|h)art	Dalhart	Dallas or Lockhart
il?e$	Etoile and Wylie	Beeville
il*e$	Etoile and Wylie and Beeville	Bellaire
il+e$	Etoile and Beeville	Wylie
ad{2}	Addison and Caddo	Adkins
(la.*){2,}	Highland Village and Lake Dallas	Laredo

Table 123: Order of precedence
Character	Description
\	Escape
(), []	Parentheses and Brackets
*, +, ?, {n}, {n,}, {n,m}	Quantifiers
^, $, \anymetacharacter	Anchors and Sequences
\|	Alteration

Table 123: Order of precedence

Character

Description

Escape

(), []

Parentheses and Brackets

*, +, ?, {n}, {n,}, {n,m}

Quantifiers

^, $, \anymetacharacter

Anchors and Sequences

Alteration

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