Entity Framework Core 7 connection certificate trust exception

Question

I recently upgraded to Entity Framework Core 7 in development and I'm getting an exception:

A connection was successfully established with the server, but then an error occurred during the login process. (provider: SSL Provider, error: 0 - The certificate chain was issued by an authority that is not trusted.)

I am using Microsoft SQL Server Developer (64-bit). I have tried to make changes in the VS2022 Server Explorer to disable encryption and to trust the server certificate, I don't have one installed, but the exception remains. How can this be mitigated in development?

Answer 1

It is not a bug in EF Core 7.0, instead it is improved security. Microsoft suggests either of the following 3 solutions, whichever applies to you:

1. Install a valid certificate.
2. Add TrustServerCertificate=True to the connectionstring
3. Add Encrypt=False to the connectionstring

Old behavior
SqlClient connection strings use Encrypt=False by default. This allows connections on development machines where the local server does not have a valid certificate.

New behavior
SqlClient connection strings use Encrypt=True by default. This means that:

• The server must be configured with a valid certificate
• The client must trust this certificate

If these conditions are not met, then a SqlException will be thrown. For example:

A connection was successfully established with the server, but then an error occurred during the login process. (provider: SSL Provider, error: 0 - The certificate chain was issued by an authority that is not trusted.)

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/ef/core/what-is-new/ef-core-7.0/breaking-changes

Answer 2

Same problem here after upgrading Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer to 7.0.0

I fixed that by adding TrustServerCertificate=Yes to the SQL Server connection string.

Answer 3

The Below code worked for .net core 6 & 7

> "ConnectionStrings": {
>     "SqlServer": "Data Source=DESKTOP-*****;Initial Catalog=Test;Integrated Security=True;TrustServerCertificate=Yes",
> "LocalSqlProviderEnable": true   }

Answer 4

I think it's fails because is a recent update. I had the same problem and I fixed it re installing the previous version (6.0.11). I hope this comment helps you.

Answer 5

It seems the answer is to await an update to EF Core 7. This should be a bug. My development is all on one machine with a SQL Server Development Edition instance. I suppose using localdb might be an approach.

Answer 6

After adding Encrypt=False in the connection string it resolved the issue.

"DefaultConnection": "Server=(localdb)\\mssqllocaldb;Database=CommunicationDB;Trusted_Connection=True;MultipleActiveResultSets=True;Encrypt=False;"