SP 2010: BCS AuthenticationMode and RevertToSelf

While creating a new BCS External Content type I found that I could not connect using the BCS service Identity. I kept on getting an error saying the Application pool cannot revert to self… umm.. The error will look something like this:

The metadata object that has Name <Name> has a Property with name ‘AuthenticationMode‘ and value ‘RevertToSelf‘. This value indicates that the runtime should revert to the identity of the application pool, but reverting to the application pool must be explicitly enabled for the service application by a farm administrator.

Well 3 hours later I Binged the issue and found Tobias Zimmergren’s Blog outlining a solution for this issue. Here is a summary of the solution: Launch a new SharePoint 2010 Management Shell console and type in the following lines of code. Note that the name of the Service App below, is a copy of the name you took above:

$bcsServiceApp = Get-SPServiceApplication | where {$_ -match "Business Data Connectivity Service"}
$bcsServiceApp.RevertToSelfAllowed = $true;
$bcsServiceApp.Update();

This should now execute nicely (if you’ve got the appropriate permissions) and you should be able to see the RevertToSelfAllowed property be changed to true: