How do I assign an entire Active Directory group security access in SQL Server 2008?

Question

I would like to use integrated security with my internal application which is all on a domain. Unfortunately, I've never been able to get this to work well. I would like to assign an entire Exchange (Active Directory) Group a role in SQL Server for read/write access to certain tables. That way I wouldn't have to create an operator whenever someone is hired or delete an operator whenever someone is fired. Is this possible? What steps would I take to do this?

Answer 1

• Set the AD group as a login. And "login" means server level login not the AD concept of user/login. In SQL Server speak, this is a server level principal
• Create a mapped user in. You shouldn't really permission a user directly on tables. And "user" means database user not the AD concept of user: in SQL Server speak, this is a "database level principal"
• Add user to role (also a "database level principal")
• GRANT permissions to the roles on the tables (a table or proc etc is a "securable")

Sample script

USE master;
GO
CREATE LOGIN [MYDOMAIN\APPLICATION SUPPORT] FROM WINDOWS;
GO
USE mydb;
GO
CREATE USER [MYDOMAIN\APPLICATION SUPPORT] FROM LOGIN [MYDOMAIN\APPLICATION SUPPORT];
GO
CREATE ROLE rSupport;
GO
EXEC sp_addrolemember 'rSupport', 'MYDOMAIN\APPLICATION SUPPORT';
GO
GRANT SELECT, INSERT,UPDATE, etc ON Mytable TO rSupport;
GO

Answer 2

Granting the permissions within SQL Server to an AD Group is relatively straightforward, and can be done either through TSQL or Management Studio. For instance, if you can an AD group called MYDOMAIN\APPLICATION SUPPORT you create the login at the sever level,and then you can use mapping into individual databases to give slightly more granular permissions such as data reader. Ideally, all application access should be through stored procedures, so only execute permissions on those stored procedures in that database is all that is required.

Answer 3

If the user is a member of a DOMAIN\SecurityGroup that has Sysadmin authority in SQL, then that will be used when accessing databases. Otherwise you need to look at what DOMAIN\SecurityGroup(s) have ben given authority in each database. If the user is a member of 2 SecurityGroups, with SecGroupA having select authority and SecGroupB having insert authority, then the user can select and insert.