16

I have a database Microsoft SQL Server 2008 r2. A user called marie is defined, who can access tables on the main database; this works well. Now, I would like marie to be able to perform this query:

SELECT resource_type,spid,login_time,status,hostname,program_name,nt_domain,nt_username,loginame
  FROM sys.dm_tran_locks dl
  JOIN sys.sysprocesses sp on dl.request_session_id = sp.spid

The tables involved are master tables; how do I give permission to marie to read from them? I already tried to execute the following as dbo:

GRANT ALL on sys.dm_tran_locks TO marie
GRANT ALL on sys.sysprocesses TO marie

Still, when marie tries to perform the query above, the error is:

Msg 297, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
The user does not have permission to perform this action.

What am I doing wrong?

1
  • 1
    Also you should be using sys.dm_exec_requests, sys.dm_exec_sessions, etc. sysprocesses is a backward compatibility view and will be removed from the product at some point. Commented Feb 12, 2013 at 18:08

1 Answer 1

29

System views require a slightly elevated state to view, since they are instance wide. You'll want to GRANT VIEW SERVER STATE for this:

GRANT VIEW SERVER STATE TO marie;
5
  • Here is the link to the manual: msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms188754%28v=sql.105%29.aspx
    – user1822
    Commented Feb 12, 2013 at 18:03
  • @a_horse_with_no_name Thanks, was looking for that. :) Link added to answer.
    – Mike Fal
    Commented Feb 12, 2013 at 18:05
  • This isn't supported in Azure SQL db - how do I achieve the equivalent here?
    – tommed
    Commented Sep 30, 2016 at 11:35
  • 1
    Try GRANT VIEW DATABASE STATE.
    – Mike Fal
    Commented Sep 30, 2016 at 18:40
  • Some tables under sys can indeed be selected from with only select permissions of a single database, such as sys.indexes.
    – John
    Commented Jul 4, 2017 at 18:26

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