Recently I inherited a database from another programmer (created / stored with SQL Management Studio 2008), and I am having massive difficulties accessing, modifying, or even viewing the previously created databases.
Specifically, when I try to load one of the databases in SQL Management Studio I get the following error message:
"The database [database name] is not
accessible. (Object Explorer)"
I am connecting to the SQL server with windows authentication.
Anyway, is this a permissions issue left over from the last dev? (he's unavailable, unfortunately) And is there an easy work-around short of completely reinstalling SQL Management Studio?
Edit: Update:
Upon trying to access User Mapping, as suggested below, I got the following error message:
"One or more databases are inaccessible and will not be displayed in list."
Unfortunately, none of the databases I am trying to access appeared in the list, so I assume they are still inaccessible.
It could very well be a permissions problem. If you open Object Explorer in SQL Server Management Studio and expand the Security node (the one under the server instance, not the Security tab under the individual databases) and then expand the Logins node you'll see the list of logins that have been created on the server. Have a look at the properties of each of those and check out the User Mapping information. You'll be able to see which logins are mapped to which databases. It's possible the previous programmer only granted access to the database to certain logins. If you find a login that's mapped to the database you want, try changing the password of the login and then connecting to the database with that login and password. NOTE: be careful when changing the password as it may affect production applications that are using that login and password!
This message:
"One or more databases are inaccessible and will not be displayed in list."
Means that the user you are using right now cannot access to that db. If you can enter with a user that does have access and from that user change your actual user's rights through User Mapping, then you will see it.
You need a dba (or someone with dba equivalent access) to give you rights to the database.
Related
i tried everything possible to fix this but nothing worked for me ,pls help me to create a table on my database .
AS your question title says, the error is a clear problem with your user autentication. This problem may be due to a very large list of causes, but I will give you what in my humble opinion is a quick troubleshooting that may lead you to solve this problem:
First of all, check the permissions of your user on the specified database. Using SQL Server Management Studio, right click your user, properties, then user mapping. Right there you have to check for the correct database mapping and the desired role.
Check server authentication mode, to see if it is on mixed mode. In many cases, I´ve seen many installations where the authentication is set to windows only, and users keep getting this message having the correct permissions on user and correct mappings.
I've been searching everywhere but it seems as nobody has my problem. I recently created an Azure SQL Database and I have not had luck at all with figuring out what to do with the error 18456. I Many times I've seen the "Just right click the database and go to properties and security" but there is no security. In fact there seem to be a lot of things I don't have when I right click. I barely know anything about any of this though, so I've tried quite a few things. At one point I thought I needed to use the sample adventure works. but that wasn't it. So I'd be really grateful if anyone helped.
[SSMS Version: 16.4.1]
[Azure SQL Database: Server Version 12]
Picture of my properties menu in SSMS(SQL Server Management Studio)
]
Picture of my right click
]
Your error is common, but the way you solve it on-premise or using virtual machines (Infrastructure-as-a-Service, IaaS) is different than how you would solve it for Windows Azure SQL Database (WASD). WASD is a Platform-as-a-Service version of SQL Server. The SQL Instance is logical, so you have to change some of your thought processes. One of the chief ways you'll need to change your thought processes is in how you manage your SQL Databases.
When you're in WASD and you create a database, you're asked to create an administrative username and password. Using that account you can deploy the schema of your database as well as SQL Authenticated Users and permissions. You don't have permission to change the instance's authentication types, that's why you don't see an option for security when you right-click on the instance name and choose properties.
The following steps are how you would create a new LOGIN to allow this new user to authenticate to the virtual instance. After you've created a LOGIN, you then need to create a database USER for this LOGIN. With this USER, you can then assign permissions for what this USER can and cannot do.
Adding Logins for your Windows Azure SQL Database
A few notes before we get started. In the following code anything in angle brackets (< and >) mean this is a variable you can change. So would be the username you want to create for your Entity-Framework application. would be the password you want to use for your .
Use your administrative credentials to connect to your instance. This account has permissions to control everything about your database. When you connect, you should find that by default you've connected to the master database on that instance. If not, use the drop-down at the top of SSMS to change to master. "USE master" will not work.
From this connection, the following T-SQL will create your Entity-Framework's username and password.
CREATE LOGIN [<username>] WITH PASSWORD = '<password>';
At this point, if you were to try and connect to the virtual instance with this and , you could connect to your virtual instance, but not any database on this virtual instance. Your error message would say something like:
The server principal "" is not able to access the database
"" under the current security context....
You need to take at least one more step before this user can connect to your user database.
Now, from that same SSMS script window, change the database to the user database () you're granting access to. This will be the database you want your Entity-Framework application to use. Remember, use the drop-down at the top.
First we will create a database user for the login created in the previous step.
CREATE USER [<username>] FOR LOGIN <username>
Then, we will allow this to connect to your user database , the database you want the Entity-Framework application to use.
GRANT CONNECT TO [<username>]
At this point, your new username can log in to the virtual instance and connect to your user database.
Now, you will need to add any other permissions this user will need. For example, if your will only need read permissions, you could get away with adding the user to the db_datareader database role. Add those permissions now.
Special note about connection and connection strings
Your user is now setup to connect to your user database. That means in SSMS if you try and connect with your Entity-Framework user, there is an extra step to your connection dialog box. Before you click Connect, you have to hit the Options button.
Since your user cannot hit master, you have to tell SSMS you want to connect to the user database first and avoid hitting master. By default, SSMS will try to connect to your SQL instance's master database first.
You have to enter the name of the database in the "connect to database" entry. After you've entered the database, you can then hit connect.
I'll guess that in your application it already had the "Default Catalog=" value set to your user database, and you were able to connect. Setting this value in options is like setting that "Default Catalog=" value.
I hope this helps you in breaking into WASD a little more.
EDITS: attempting to add clarity to the differences between IaaS SQL Server instances and PaaS Windows Azure SQL Database. I previously missed the FOR LOGIN clause on the CREATE USER statement.
I am having some trouble creating a new SQL user in SQL Server 2008 R2. When I use SQL Server Management Studio it checks db_owner role membership by default. I just want to create a new sql user with read only access. Even with the following raw SQL it still creates the user with db_owner level permission.
<!-- language: lang-sql -->
CREATE LOGIN readonlyuser
WITH PASSWORD = '12345',CHECK_POLICY = OFF, DEFAULT_DATABASE=mydatabase
GO
USE mydatabase
GO
CREATE USER readonlyuser FOR LOGIN readonlyuser
GO
EXEC sp_addrolemember 'db_datareader', 'readonlyuser'
Now if I log on to SQL Server Management Studio with newly created user I can basically access any table and modify any data any way that I want. This is exactly what I not want to do. I want only to be read data and not to modify any data
Strange thing is if I look at the roles for database the readonlyuser is inside db_datareader and not in db_owner.
So why is SQL creating this user with db_owner level permissions, thus allowing the user to modify data?
Update 2013/08/07
This seems to be happening with just one specific database. I created brand new database and created bunch of tables and then ran the same script above and it is working perfectly fine. But if i try with the actual database where i need this change, it doesn't work like that. It created the user and gave way too much permission.
Is there anything that i can check on that database? Please note that specific database was not designed by me. It is from a 3rd party vendor. So not sure exactly what modifications they might have done.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
I ran into the same issue.
The solution: sp_changedbowner. That fixed it. (Somehow the owner was corrupted)
I don't see any problem in query. And it worked as expected when i tested it. Just for confirmation, verify if user is properly mapped to required database (mydatabase) and db_datareader is selected from user property window.
I found that this happens to me when adding logins to databases that I restored to a new server. In the Files tab of the database's properties, the owner field is blank, even though it lists a user in the General tab. If I populate the owner field with a valid login, then the problem is resolved: new logins don't have "db_owner" checked by default.
To expand on Greg's comment, this probably happens when the restored database was owned on the source server by a login that's not present on the current (the destination) server. The info on the General tab is the original owner (on the source server), which cannot be reflected on the Files tab, since that logion is missing on the current server. In a certain sense this is an "orphaned database" then.
I have been asked to maintain a site created in ASP classic that uses a SQL Server database.
I was given the database in the form of a backup. I restored the database on my local computer and created a DSN connection to it. However when I attempt to load my site, the stored procedures the site relies on give an error that execute permission was denied.
The stored procedures in question have a user named UserSecure showing as the only person with EXECUTE permission, I have tried creating a user by that name but that does not work, even though I can manually login to SQL Server Management Studio using UserSecure trying to connect from the web page using those credentials gives a login failed error.
If I run sp_helplogins my Windows credentials are shown as being owner of the database, and I can in fact execute from within SSMS but not from an ADO connection.
On another note the connection in the webpage was coded like this, I am not familiar with the application part of the connection. Perhaps this is part of the problem? I have tried connecting with a DSN and DSN-less connection and can connect but not do anything with the database?
You should make sure the database server login is mapped to the appropriate database user (this problem crops up often when dealing with database backups). If it is not, then you need to fix the mapping. Fortunately, there is a command called sp_change_users_login that you can use to fix this problem.
First, check if your login is mapped to your database user. Using SQL Server Management Studio (assuming SQL Server 2008), look under Security/Logins for UserSecure. If you see it in the list, double click on it and select User Mapping. From there, locate the database you are trying to connect to, and see if UserSecure is mapped to that database. If it is not, you may be able to fix it using the following command (assuming UserSecure is the name of both the login and the user):
EXEC sp_change_users_login AUTO_FIX, UserSecure
See MSDN for more info on sp_change_users_login:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms174378.aspx
One issue that has bitten me a few times:
If your stored procedure (or view) requires permission from a user (let's say userA), and the stored procedure calls another database's table or view (say viewB), it is not sufficient to just make a login on viewB's database, you must also explicitly grant userA permission to select/execute/etc. on viewB (which in turn requires a user on viewB's database)
So in your case, you may need to explicitly grant UserSecure execute permission on a stored procedure on an existing database referenced by the one you restored.
This may not be the most elegent fix, but I quit focusing on the one procedure and instead granted execute permission to the guest user on the entire DB. Since this is only running on my personal machine security is not an issue and it seems to have fixed the problem.
Know the problem all too well,
The ID of the user(name) will be different from the backed up database to the restored one. MSSQL stores the ID of the user and not the username (text), so the ID will be different (99% of the time) per machine and backup. So when the ID does not match you don't have access.
All you need to do is delete the user and recreate it, make sure you do it in both places:
Delete the user from the database first:
DATABASE -> SECURITY -> USERS -> Right click (username) + delete
Then goto
SECURITY -> LOGINS -> Right click (username) + delete
Then recreate the user and give the account the correct permissions and you're all good.
I am currently encountering the following error when I try to specify a datasource from SSRS to SQL Server db (2008) using "credentials that are stored securely in the server" - this is specified as a windows account "s2\killian" with the option to "impersonate the authenticated user after a connection has been made" checked.
Msg 15157, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Setuser failed because of one of the following reasons: the database principal 's2\killian' does not exist, its corresponding server principal does not have server access, this type of database principal cannot be impersonated, or you do not have permission.
Obviously this method of impersonation uses the SetUser() function behind the scenes and the MSDN documentation states that dbowner permissions are required in order to use this function. However I am getting the above error when using dbowner. I am not in a position to use sysadmin because of security policy.
Does anyone know how to get this mechanism of authentication and impersonation working without assigning sysadmin priveleges on the SQL Server database to the windows account used by the SSRS data source.
Is there a way of getting SetUser() to work without sysadmin priveleges?
Thanks
Killian
The clue is "the database principal 's2\killian' does not exist"
Any connection uses context change on the database side (eg SETUSER, EXECUTE AS etc) requires that the impersonated user exists in sys.server_principals and/or sys.database_principals.
Assuming you use an AD group, not individual logins, then this will cause the same error as above. Outside of any permissions. If you are db_owner, then you can impersonate at the database level. If you can't, then it's because of the previous paragraph.
I've always thought that this is an idiotic option for SSRS to have. MSDN says it uses SETUSER which is also deprecated. Ideally, you'd impersonate before connection which is possible for asp.net apps but don't know for SSRS (which is an asp.net app of course)
Sorry for lack of "do this and it works" answer...
I have been able to confirm as well that you must have Sysadmin rights to run the SETUSER function which appears to be the mechanism leveraged by SQL reporting services when "Impersonate the authenticated user after connecting" option is chosen.
MSDN's documentation for SETUSER mentions this but makes it sound like it should also be possible to run this function as just a db_owner but I have not gotten reporting services to work with an account that only has db_owner and I have not even been able to run setuser manually under an account that only has db_owner. The only way I have gotten it to work is with sysadmin privileges.