Can't grant role permissions under sysadmin login

Question

I'm trying to execute this script from Management Studio:

GRANT ALTER ON ROLE::[AdaptTemplate] TO [AdaptAdmin] AS [AdminSapr]

Execution fails with this message:

Msg 15151, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 Cannot find the role 'AdaptTemplate', because it does not exist or you do not have permission.

There are existing roles AdaptTemplate, AdaptAdmin and user AdminSapr in database. User AdminSapr is a member of db_owner. My current login (which I'm trying to execute script from) is a member of sysadmin server role.

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

This is happening because the principal in the AS clause needs to have the permission with the "GRANT OPTION". Running this will allow you to run your original code:

GRANT ALTER ON ROLE::[AdaptTemplate] TO [AdminSapr] WITH GRANT OPTION

My reading of Books Online made me think that what you're doing is right since AdminSapr is in the db_owner role but in testing I had to do something like the above to get this to work.