Author: way0utwest

The other day I was trying to help someone that had removed the BUILTIN/Administrators logins from their instance without first setting up another user/group as sysadmin. Actually I wasn’t helping. I was telling them that finding the media would be a good move to prepare for the reinstallation.

Then someone posted a note that if you start SQL Server in single user mode, then you can connect with the administrator account and get sysadmin access. It’s true and there’s a BOL entry about this: Troubleshooting: Connecting to SQL Server When System Administrators Are Locked Out

I was surprised that this was the case. If you get locked out on your Windows machine, you’re basically done. There are a few password cracker programs, but the reality should be that if you don’t have the administrator password, and you don’t have any administrator groups define, you should not get in. Sucks if it happens, but that’s strong security.

Why is it different with SQL Server? If someone can log on as “administrator” and start SQL Server in single user mode, then they have access to all your data. I know you should trust your admins, but typically we have separation of duties, and the Exchange administrator should not necessarily be poking around in SQL Server.

On top of that, “administrator” is a generic login. Your auditing won’t tell you who connected.

I think this is a problem, and I actually need to write an editorial on this. It’s a hole that I think deserves to be removed.

The other night I was tired, a few long days, early mornings with the kids, and slightly wired, but needing to rest. My wife was alseep, so I blogged a bit, watched a little TV, and then turned out the light about 10:30.

I lay there, and for some reason, about 10:50 or so, I woke up. I was pretty sure I hadn’t scheduled a newsletter. It just occurred to me, so I grabbed the laptop next to the bed, fired it up in the dark, my eyes 2” from the keyboard trying to type my crazy 10+ letter password.

I checked, and sure enough it wasn’t scheduled. I did a quick schedule and test, and then went to bed. Strange that I’d catch it that late at night, but glad I did.

Some days it pays to have the laptop next to the bed. I might not have gotten up if I’d have to go downstairs to check that computer.

After my editorial this week on Coding By the Sea, my boss actually pinged me to say that I could have a week if I wanted. I could work on a project of my choosing for a week that would benefit the company in some way.

At first I thought, very cool! I could take a week off, maybe even disappear from the house for a week and work on something. However reality set in pretty quickly and I wasn’t sure this was the thing for me.

Disappearing from my life for a week is hard. I have a family, busy kid life, and if I were gone for long hours to dedicate to some project it would be a burden on my wife. Even if I came home every night, would that work? Would I get enough done? Then there’s the matter of SQLServerCentral. For me to close down for a week I’d have to spend a lot of time over the next few weeks doing double work to get my pipelines ready for a week of me not working.

I think the first thing I’d have to do is decide on a project. I have a couple book  ideas, but I’m not sure how much I’d get done in a week. Even full-time writing at my pace I’d get something done, but I’m not sure how much progress I’d make on something that should be 150 pages.

I thought about some type of software, but I’m not sure I’m a good enough developer to actually take ideas and make them work. In all likelihood I wouldn’t get out of my own way and spend too much time debugging things.

I could work on some reports, after all Reporting Services is on my list of 2010 goals. However I’m not sure what benefit there is to my company (SQLServerCentral or Red Gate) with that one.

The one thing I did think of was to work on getting 2-3 top-notch presentations done. Things I could share with other people in Red Gate or even outside the company. SQL Server presentations that would incorporate the Red Gate tools into the presentation. I think they are good tools, and there is value in purchasing them. It would be good to find a way to show DBAs how the tools help without making it an advertising commercial. It’s an interesting challenge, and one I’d like to tackle at some point.

I heard back from my boss that Red Gate is actually scheduling a down week for some teams (development groups) where they can try to knock something out in a week. The timing for that doesn’t really work for me, but perhaps I’ll try to get a week sometime this year to work on some personal project.

As long as it’s after ski season, I think I could get a lot done in a week.