What is the impact if we reset the password for MTS User - Tridion 2013 SP1

Question

Its very common that in the project the initial Tridion installation was done long back and the current team members have no record whats the MTSUser credentials set at the installation time. Now there can be any situation, an issue to fix which needs MTSUser login to debug. Then the only option is to reset the password for MTUser but there are some road-blocks in this path:

As mentioned by Nuno in one of his comment in this post the below things can break:

1)Any COM+ related code (if you have any)

2)Search will stop working.

Is there any more possible issues that may come in picture. What should be the ideal approach to overcome the main Issue; How to get the MTSUser back again to ensure its working. any comments on same area most welcome.

Answer 1

Since there's silence here... here's my best shot:

1. The COM+ Application for SDL Tridion (I think that's the name) has an identity associated with it, this is by default the MTSUser. You need to change the password there to ensure it continues working after you reset this user's password.

2. The search (SOLR) identity is also set to MTSUser. I believe this information is set using the MMC Snap-In in 2013 SP1 (I could be wrong, haven't used this version in a while). After resetting the password, ensure you change it here too

3. It is not uncommon for custom code to have "Admin impersonation" built-in, i.e. you could have an event that needs more permissions than the user triggering the event would normally have, and therefore the code impersonates an admin user to perform those actions. It is also not uncommon to use the MTSUser account for this type of actions. This is hard to detect... until stuff stops working.

Good luck!