Question

Grant DBCC TRACEON to a specific user in SQL Server 2005 (not sysadmin)

Asked by: aschlueter

Excel queries (MS Query) cannot run with read-only role in SQL Server 2005. The error is "user does not have permission to run dbcc traceon". It's my understanding that this can be resovled by added the user to the sysadmin role, this is NOT ACCEPTABLE. My company has thousands of online reports that use this authentication and they must be backwards compatible without manipulating the connection strings or code on the reports.

Is there any way to grant access to run DBCC TRACEON to a specific user in SQL Server 2005 without giving them sysadmin acesss?

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Asked On
2007-05-16 at 09:09:23ID22576029
Tags

dbcc

,

traceon

,

sql

,

2005

,

server

Topics

SQL Server 2005

,

MS SQL Server

Participating Experts
4
Points
500
Comments
10

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Answers

 

by: rboyd56Posted on 2007-05-16 at 10:43:14ID: 19102725

Books on line indicates that DBCC Traceon can only be run by members of the sysadmin role.

This is a good thing, because many of the available trace flags can drastically shange the behavior of SQL Server and you would not want to give this power to anyone other than a sysadmin.

 

by: aschlueterPosted on 2007-05-16 at 10:48:39ID: 19102773

All this DBCC TraceON is doing is trying to set the "QUOTED_IDENTIFIER" to "ON". Our company has tens of thousands of connected Excel reports that will start throwing errors unless I grant an extremely weak username/password sysadmin privileges. I know that I can fix it on the application side by changing the connection string from "APP=Microsoft Query" to "APP=Microsoft Office 2000", but that isn't an option. We don't have the resources to fix all of those reports, this must be fixed on the server side without added this "read-only" user to the sysadmin role.

 

by: rboyd56Posted on 2007-05-16 at 10:57:10ID: 19102836

It is probably trying to turn on trace flag 208. Granted this is one of the trace flags that does not directly effect SQL Server. However, there are many that do. If non sysadmins were able to use traceon they could considerably change the the way SQL Server works, most likely to the detriment.

You might be able to the sp_configure "user options" to get around this.

Look at this topic in Books on Line:

ms-help://MS.SQLCC.v9/MS.SQLSVR.v9.en/udb9/html/18ec1bd8-1d3c-4b17-befb-a2cbb5524446.htm

You can set qouted identifier on for all connections server wide. However, this will change the behavior for all connections. Also it may not resolve the problem, if the driver still tries to turn it on.

 

by: rboyd56Posted on 2007-05-16 at 11:04:16ID: 19102886

If you are using a DSN to connect to SQL Server from Excel you might be able to use the technique in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/229929 to get around this.

 

by: aschlueterPosted on 2007-05-16 at 11:38:56ID: 19103157

All of our connected Excel reports use DSNless connections, so the strings are set.  Also, altering the server and/or user connection to set Quoted Identifier (user options set at 288 which is ansi nulls on and quoted identifier on) doesn't make a difference. The server just knows that a non-sysadmin is trying to run a DBCC.

 

by: marcwojtowiczPosted on 2007-08-24 at 13:34:25ID: 19765287

I joined Experts Exchange just so I could share this solution I developed to this problem this morning.

The procedure below will repair all Excel files in a single folder which have the DBCC TRACEON error issue for query data refresh.  Any files which do not have this issue will not be modified by this procedure.

1.  Copy the executable file GSAR.EXE (Global Search And Replace) from the .ZIP archive (see freeware download instructions below) to a local folder that is easily accessible from a command prompt.  C:\Temp\ is assumed in the instructions below.
2.  Make sure the folder of Excel files to be repaired is accessible through a standard drive letter (for UNC paths, use a Mapped Drive.)  Z:\ExcelFiles\ is assumed in the instructions below.
3.  Open a command prompt Window (Start à Run à type CMD, and press the Enter key.)
4.  Change to the drive/directory where the GSAR.EXE file is stored.  (Enter the commands C:, then CD \TEMP.)
5.  Run the command below to repair the Excel files.  Be sure to replace the Z:\ExcelFiles\ with the actual location of the files to be repaired.

gsar -sAPP=Microsoft:xAE:x20Query -rAPP=SQL:x20Server:x20Query -o Z:\ExcelFiles\*.xls

  The output of the command above will only list files that were repaired, and will indicate how many different queries were updated with the repair.

  Ultimately, all this does is change the Application Name portion of the connection string from Microsoft® Query to SQL Server Query using a binary search and replace on the file (the file stores this data in plain text.)  Because the replacement string is exactly the same number of characters, it does not otherwise affect the Excel file (not even the file size.)

  GSAR is a freeware utility I obtained from this website:  http://home.online.no/~tjaberg/

  Although this utility does not allow scanning subfolders recursively, you could create a batch file that would do it.  You can get a list of subfolders from a given directory and direct the output to a file called Subfolders.txt with the command below.  You could then modify Subfolders.txt to create the batch file.

DIR /A:D /B /S "Z:\ExcelFiles" > Subfolders.txt


  If you have questions about this procedure, let me know.

 

by: aj2000617Posted on 2007-11-13 at 14:47:12ID: 20276014

This worked like a charm for me for me.  Thanks for joining!

 

by: marcwojtowiczPosted on 2007-11-14 at 04:34:46ID: 20279330

Glad I joined and was able to help!  I hope it helps others as well.  It's nice to be able to contribute to the community, particularly in frustrating situations like these.

 

by: butterhookPosted on 2008-08-07 at 08:50:34ID: 22182189

Thanks, this helped me!!

 

by: aj2000617Posted on 2010-03-08 at 07:38:02ID: 27598256

Interesting... We just migrated another box to SQL 2005 and ran into this issue again.  I looked up this article, since it had solved my issue last time, and ran it against a folder full of files with the issue.  This time, while it did find 2 files and correct them, there were several files that it did not correct, and they continue to have the issue.  Anyone aware of a new string that needs to be replaced?

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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