SharePoint Admin account permissions failed

Question

Per best practice, I created Windows user and added to the Administrators group (sp_admin) to install SharePoint 2010 and installed the product under that account.

However, after running the Configuration Wizard and logging in to Central Administration using the administrative privileges for the created, I have no ability to add service applications due to lack of permissions nor does the UI show the Central Administration wizard.

When I log in to the server with the default administrative user (Administrator), I CAN, even though no part of the product was installed under that account.

What am I missing?

Answer 1

Is your sp_admin user local administrator? The installation account should be local admin on all SharePoint servers.

Answer 2

If the sp_admin account is the account you used to install SharePoint, then it would have the required access. Based on the situation you described it sounds like the Administrator account was used.

Answer 3

Is the sp_admin account the farm account? (in the farm admin group?)

The current best practices I have seen refer to using a sp_admin account for installation and updates/patches and using a separate account as the farm admin (e.g. sp_farm).

You would install with sp_admin (which has local admin privileges on the server) and during the post install config wizard specify sp_farm as the farm account.

The sp_farm account should then be able to add Service Applications and use Central Admin GUI features.

I think by default the local admins group on the server are given farm admin permissions, and it is best practice to remove that group from the farm admins group after configuration an sp_farm account and adding any named users that you want to be farm admins.

So it sounds like you didn't add a sp_admin to farm admins, you should add a sp_farm (or whatever your naming convention is) account as farm admin and your local Administrator account is a farm admin since it is a member of the local administrators group that is given farm admin permissions by default.