question

I am trying to implement a specific replication configuration using SQL scripts generated within SSMS. The corresponding manual procedure works. But running the scripts generated by SSMS to implement the same setup fails. Specifically, the replication agent fails to start when the subscriber initially attempts to synchronize. The error in the job log indicates that the specified username or password is incorrect. I am attempting to use NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM as the user, which is the user which I can see starts the replication agent when the manual procedure is used successfully. Therefore, I am passing this user in as the value for the @job_login variable in the script. I don't think the error is on the user; I think it is on the password, because if I intentionally enter a bogus string for the user, I get a different error, indicating explicitly that it is not a valid user. I get no such error when I enter 'NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM' as the user. From what I see online, this user has no password, and any password given for it will be ignored. Therefore I am passing in a random string as the password, because if I do not specify a password, I get an error saying that password cannot be null unless login is also null. So apparently I need to pass in something. Yet I continue to get the error that either the login or password is incorrect. Can anyone let me know if they are aware of any particular format that is needed for the password in this case, when passing it in as @job_password inside a script, for a user which actually has no password? Thanks