Last week I spent some unnecessary time troubleshooting an issue when adding workers to a “Primary” Tableau server in a test environment I built out. 

Almost all of the information YOU would need to deal with similar problems can be found online, but this last bit isn’t and I had forgotten about it myself. Silly me. 

So, I’m posting it so I don’t forget again. My pain is your gain.

I’m oversimplifying a bit, but there are generally three things that could impact your ability to install a worker:

Connectivity issues which prevent the Primary from talking to the worker

http://onlinehelp.tableausoftware.com/v7.0/server/en-us/ports.htm  

Specifically, make sure that ports 3729-3740 are open in firewalls between your machines or you won’t pass go. If you don’t, you’ll generally get another error message (“Worker <ip address> is not responding>”) vs. the one already mentioned.

Permissions issues which prevent installation or configuration of Tableau bits on the worker

The “Run As” user you assign to the Primary server must also have permissions to install stuff on the worker. 

http://onlinehelp.tableausoftware.com/current/server/en-us/runas_confirm.htm

If the account that you’re using doesn’t have correct permissions you’ll often see a message in the tabadmin.log file on the worker (generally found in ProgramDataTableauTableau Serverlogs) that looks something like this: 

Error: Current user and <some user name here> not granted permissions to C:/ProgramData/Tableau/Tableau Server

Your worker machine is a part of a Windows domain, right?

Here’s the part that tripped me up. Your worker must be part of a domain regardless of whether it is running a desktop (Vista, Win7 / Win8) or server (Win 2003, 2008, 2012) operating system.  Keeping the machine in a “Workgroup” just won’t do. I forgot about this. 

I had kept the default Run As user as “NetworkService” which should have had rights to install on the worker, but I kept on seeing this error message, which made no sense to me:

Error: Current user and NT AUTHORITYNetworkService not granted permissions to C:/ProgramData/Tableau/Tableau Server

After much fumbling and flailing about I remembered dealing with the same problem a few years ago.  I added the box to a domain and everything proceeded smoothly – except for the self-loathing I now feel.