Alpesh Nakar Blogs on SharePoint, Microsoft and that’s IT

In our production setup, we experienced this issue when trying to access the Shared Service Provider Admin Web site. In a different environment, the SharePoint Configuration Wizard failed and it was same error that needed to be fixed.

Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    Office SharePoint Server
Event Category:    Office Server Shared Services
Event ID:    6482
Date:        26/02/2008
Time:        2:00:22 PM
User:        N/A
Computer:    xxxx
Description:
Application Server Administration job failed for service instance Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchServiceInstance (03614600-d68b-43e2-9705-36d06c36b2f7).

Reason: Access to the path ‘C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\HOSTS’ is denied.

Techinal Support Details:
System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path ‘C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\HOSTS’ is denied.
at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)
at System.IO.FileStream.Init(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, Int32 rights, Boolean useRights, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, FileOptions options, SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES secAttrs, String msgPath, Boolean bFromProxy)
at System.IO.FileStream..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, FileOptions options, String msgPath, Boolean bFromProxy)
at System.IO.FileStream..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, FileOptions options)
at System.IO.StreamWriter..ctor(String path, Boolean append, Encoding encoding, Int32 bufferSize)
at System.IO.StreamWriter..ctor(String path, Boolean append)
at System.IO.FileInfo.CreateText()
at Microsoft.Search.Administration.Security.HOSTSFile.CleanupDedicatedGathering(Hashtable HOSTSFileMappings, StringBuilder HOSTSComments, IEnumerable obsoleteHosts, String dedicatedName, Boolean isDirty)
at Microsoft.Search.Administration.Security.HOSTSFile.ConfigureDedicatedGathering(SearchServiceInstance searchServiceInstance, SPServer dedicatedWebFrontEndServer, IList`1 previousWebApplicationHostNames)
at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchServiceInstance.SynchronizeDefaultContentSource(IDictionary applications)
at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchServiceInstance.Synchronize()
at Microsoft.Office.Server.Administration.ApplicationServerJob.ProvisionLocalSharedServiceInstances(Boolean isAdministrationServiceJob)

Resolution

1. Check if hosts file exist in c:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc (It should, but in our version of the build, it didn’t exist)
2. Assign these permissions to the etc folder
   1. %computername%\WSS_Admin_WPG should have permissions as in the image
   2. %computername%\WSS_WPG should have permissions as in the image

These should be on all the servers in the farm.