Tag Archives: SQL Server

My SSMS Settings: A Visual Guide

Posted by cviorel on September 18, 2024 No comments | This post has 155 views.

As a database professional, I’ve optimized my SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) settings for maximum efficiency. Here’s a visual breakdown of my key configurations:

1. Editor Tab and Status Bar

Status bar shows execution time, database name, login, row count, and server
Pink for group connections, khaki for single server
Tab text includes only the file name

2. Advanced Execution Settings

SET CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL and SET ARITHABORT enabled
Transaction isolation: READ COMMITTED
Suppressed provider message headers
Completion time shown after query execution

3. Query Results to Grid

Max characters for non-XML: 65535
XML data: Unlimited

4. Query Results to Text

Custom delimiter: | (vertical bar)
Include column headers
Scroll as results are received
Max characters per column: 8192

5. SQL Server Object Explorer Options

Audit Log: Top 1000 records
Drag-and-drop: Prepend schema, surround with brackets
Prompt for schema object renaming
Edit Top: 200 rows
Select Top: 1000 rows

6. Query Output Formatting

Custom delimiter: | (pipe character)
Include column headers
Scroll as results are received
Max characters per column: 8192

These settings streamline my SSMS workflow. Adjust them to fit your needs and boost your productivity!

Configure Active Directory authentication with SQL Server on Linux

Posted by cviorel on December 13, 2020 No comments | This post has 3,097 views.

Microsoft just released the adutil in public preview which is a CLI based utility developed to ease the AD authentication configuration for both SQL Server on Linux and SQL Server Linux containers.

We don’t need to switch to a Windows machine to create the AD user for SQL Server and setting SPNs.

In the following steps I will try to install a SQL Server instance on Linux using just the Linux CLI tool adutil.

We will need 2 VMs:

tf-wincore01.lab.local – Domain Controller (DC) running on Windows Server 2019 Core (will
host the lab.local domain)
tf-ubuntu01.lab.local – Ubuntu 18.04 LTS – SQL Server Instance on port 20001 will be
installed here

I will be creating a brand new environment for this test and I am using Terraform to provision the VMs .

Prepare the Domain Controller

Once the VMs are created we need to configure the domain controller:

# Configure Networking on the DC
$InterfaceIndex = $(Get-NetIPAddress -AddressFamily IPv4 | Where-Object { $_.InterfaceAlias -like "Ethernet*" }).InterfaceIndex
Set-DnsClientServerAddress -InterfaceIndex $InterfaceIndex -ServerAddresses 192.168.1.105, 192.168.1.1

# Configure the Domain Controller
$domainName = 'lab.local'
$domainAdminPassword = "SecretPa$w0rd"
$secureDomainAdminPassword = $domainAdminPassword | ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainTExt -Force

$domainName.Split('.')[0]
Install-WindowsFeature -Name AD-Domain-Services -IncludeManagementTools

# Create Active Directory Forest
Install-ADDSForest `
    -DomainName "$domainName" `
    -CreateDnsDelegation:$false `
    -DatabasePath "C:\Windows\NTDS" `
    -DomainMode "7" `
    -DomainNetbiosName $domainName.Split('.')[0] `
    -ForestMode "7" `
    -InstallDns:$true `
    -LogPath "C:\Windows\NTDS" `
    -NoRebootOnCompletion:$True `
    -SysvolPath "C:\Windows\SYSVOL" `
    -Force:$true `
    -SafeModeAdministratorPassword $secureDomainAdminPassword

# Configure Networking on the DC

$InterfaceIndex = $(Get-NetIPAddress -AddressFamily IPv4 | Where-Object { $_.InterfaceAlias -like "Ethernet*" }).InterfaceIndex

Set-DnsClientServerAddress -InterfaceIndex $InterfaceIndex -ServerAddresses 192.168.1.105, 192.168.1.1

# Configure the Domain Controller

$domainName = 'lab.local'

$domainAdminPassword = "SecretPa$w0rd"

$secureDomainAdminPassword = $domainAdminPassword | ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainTExt -Force

$domainName.Split('.')[0]

Install-WindowsFeature -Name AD-Domain-Services -IncludeManagementTools

# Create Active Directory Forest

Install-ADDSForest `

-DomainName "$domainName" `

-CreateDnsDelegation:$false `

-DatabasePath "C:\Windows\NTDS" `

-DomainMode "7" `

-DomainNetbiosName $domainName.Split('.')[0] `

-ForestMode "7" `

-InstallDns:$true `

-LogPath "C:\Windows\NTDS" `

-NoRebootOnCompletion:$True `

-SysvolPath "C:\Windows\SYSVOL" `

-Force:$true `

-SafeModeAdministratorPassword $secureDomainAdminPassword

Let’s setup our zones:

# Check the current zones
Get-DnsServerZone -ComputerName tf-wincore01

# Add a reverse lookup zone
Add-DnsServerPrimaryZone -NetworkId "192.168.1.0/24" -ReplicationScope Domain

# Display the list of records in the new DNS zone (it is empty)
Get-DnsServerResourceRecord -ComputerName tf-wincore01 -ZoneName lab.local

# Create an entry in Active Directory for the Linux host
Add-DnsServerResourceRecordA -Name tf-ubuntu01 -ZoneName lab.local -IPv4Address 192.168.1.85
Get-DnsServerResourceRecord -ZoneName lab.local -RRType A

# Add a PTR record to the Reverse Lookup Zone for the linux host
Add-DNSServerResourceRecordPTR -ZoneName 1.168.192.in-addr.arpa -Name 85 -PTRDomainName tf-ubuntu01.lab.local

# Check the current zones

Get-DnsServerZone -ComputerName tf-wincore01

# Add a reverse lookup zone

Add-DnsServerPrimaryZone -NetworkId "192.168.1.0/24" -ReplicationScope Domain

# Display the list of records in the new DNS zone (it is empty)

Get-DnsServerResourceRecord -ComputerName tf-wincore01 -ZoneName lab.local

# Create an entry in Active Directory for the Linux host

Add-DnsServerResourceRecordA -Name tf-ubuntu01 -ZoneName lab.local -IPv4Address 192.168.1.85

Get-DnsServerResourceRecord -ZoneName lab.local -RRType A

# Add a PTR record to the Reverse Lookup Zone for the linux host

Add-DNSServerResourceRecordPTR -ZoneName 1.168.192.in-addr.arpa -Name 85 -PTRDomainName tf-ubuntu01.lab.local

Note that this AD configuration is just the bare minimum for our lab and it’s not fit for a Production environment!

Join the Linux host to the domain

It’s now time to join the Linux box to our new domain. The yaml file used by netplan needs to point to the domain:

/etc/netplan/******.yaml
network:
  ethernets:
    eth0:
            dhcp4: true

            dhcp6: true
            nameservers:
                    addresses: [ **<AD domain controller IP address>**]
                    search: [**<AD domain name>**]
  version: 2

/etc/netplan/******.yaml

network:

ethernets:

eth0:

dhcp4: true

dhcp6: true

nameservers:

addresses: [ **<AD domain controller IP address>**]

search: [**<AD domain name>**]

version: 2

Confirm the configuration and apply it.

sudo netplan apply

1	sudo netplan apply

In my case, the file looks like this:

/etc/resolv.conf file should also point to the domain:

Next, we install the packages that will allow us to join the machine to the domain:

sudo apt-get install -y realmd krb5-user software-properties-common python3-software-properties packagekit
sudo apt-get install -y adcli libpam-sss libnss-sss sssd sssd-tools

1 2	sudo apt-get install -y realmd krb5-user software-properties-common python3-software-properties packagekit sudo apt-get install -y adcli libpam-sss libnss-sss sssd sssd-tools

Let’s also set the hostname:

short_hostname=$(hostname)
domain='lab.local'
fqdn=${short_hostname}.${domain}
sudo hostname $fqdn

short_hostname=$(hostname)

domain='lab.local'

fqdn=${short_hostname}.${domain}

sudo hostname $fqdn

We are now ready to join the machine to the domain:

sudo realm join lab.local -U 'administrator@lab.local' -v

1	sudo realm join lab.local -U 'administrator@lab.local' -v

This command:

creates a new computer account in AD
creates the /etc/krb5.keytab host keytab file
configures the domain in /etc/sssd/sssd.conf
updates /etc/krb5.conf

Let’s verify that we can now gather information about a user from the domain, and that we can acquire a Kerberos ticket as that user. The following example uses id, kinit, and klist commands for this.

id CHudson@lab.local
kinit CHudson@LAB.LOCAL
klist

id CHudson@lab.local

kinit CHudson@LAB.LOCAL

klist

Install adutil

We now need to install the adutil so we can interact with the Domain Controller directly from the Linux box.

# Register the Microsoft Ubuntu repository
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y curl
curl https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | sudo apt-key add -
sudo curl https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/18.04/prod.list | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/msprod.list

# Install adutil-preview
sudo ACCEPT_EULA=Y apt-get install -y adutil-preview

# Register the Microsoft Ubuntu repository

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y curl

curl https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | sudo apt-key add -

sudo curl https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/18.04/prod.list | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/msprod.list

# Install adutil-preview

sudo ACCEPT_EULA=Y apt-get install -y adutil-preview

Create a domain user using adutil

Let’s try to create a regular AD user:

kinit administrator@LAB.LOCAL # we need to use a privileged user
adutil user create --name cviorel -distname CN=cviorel,CN=Users,DC=lab,DC=local --password 'P@ssw0rd'

1 2	kinit administrator@LAB.LOCAL # we need to use a privileged user adutil user create --name cviorel -distname CN=cviorel,CN=Users,DC=lab,DC=local --password 'P@ssw0rd'

At this point adutil cannot list the users, but we can check if an account exists in the AD

adutil account exists cviorel

1	adutil account exists cviorel

Install SQL Server instance on the Linux host

From this point on, I can proceed at installing the SQL Server instance on the Linux host:

# Install SQL Server on Linux
wget -qO- https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | sudo apt-key add -
sudo add-apt-repository "$(wget -qO- https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/18.04/mssql-server-2019.list)"
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y mssql-server

# Configure SQL Server
sudo /opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf setup

# Enable the SQL Server Agent
sudo /opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf <span class="hljs-built_in">set</span> sqlagent.enabled <span class="hljs-literal">true</span> 

# Set custom TCP port
sudo /opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf set network.tcpport 20001
sudo systemctl restart mssql-server

# Check the configuration
systemctl status mssql-server --no-pager

# Install the SQL Server command-line tools
curl https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | sudo apt-key add -
curl https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/18.04/prod.list | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/msprod.list
sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get install -y mssql-tools unixodbc-dev
echo 'export PATH="$PATH:/opt/mssql-tools/bin"' >> ~/.bash_profile
echo 'export PATH="$PATH:/opt/mssql-tools/bin"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

# Install SQL Server on Linux

wget -qO- https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | sudo apt-key add -

sudo add-apt-repository "$(wget -qO- https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/18.04/mssql-server-2019.list)"

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install -y mssql-server

# Configure SQL Server

sudo /opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf setup

# Enable the SQL Server Agent

sudo /opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf <span class="hljs-built_in">set</span> sqlagent.enabled <span class="hljs-literal">true</span>

# Set custom TCP port

sudo /opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf set network.tcpport 20001

sudo systemctl restart mssql-server

# Check the configuration

systemctl status mssql-server --no-pager

# Install the SQL Server command-line tools

curl https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | sudo apt-key add -

curl https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/18.04/prod.list | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/msprod.list

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install -y mssql-tools unixodbc-dev

echo 'export PATH="$PATH:/opt/mssql-tools/bin"' >> ~/.bash_profile

echo 'export PATH="$PATH:/opt/mssql-tools/bin"' >> ~/.bashrc

source ~/.bashrc

Create an AD user for SQL Server and set the ServicePrincipalName (SPN) using adutil

SQL Server instance is running and let’s now create an AD user for SQL Server and set the ServicePrincipalName (SPN) using the adutil tool.

kinit administrator@LAB.LOCAL # we need to use a privileged user
adutil user create --name sqluser -distname CN=sqluser,CN=Users,DC=lab,DC=local --password 'P@ssw0rd'

# Register SPNs to the principal created above. We use port 20001/tcp for the SQL Server instance
adutil spn addauto -n sqluser -s MSSQLSvc -H tf-ubuntu01.lab.local -p 20001

adutil keytab createauto -k /var/opt/mssql/secrets/mssql.keytab -p 20001 -H tf-ubuntu01.lab.local --password 'P@ssw0rd' -s MSSQLSvc

# Add an entry in the keytab for the principal name and its password that will be used by SQL Server to connect to AD
adutil keytab create -k /var/opt/mssql/secrets/mssql.keytab -p sqluser --password 'P@ssw0rd!'

# Set proper permissions to the mssql.keytab file
chown mssql. /var/opt/mssql/secrets/mssql.keytab
chmod 440 /var/opt/mssql/secrets/mssql.keytab

# Configure SQL Server to use the keytab
/opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf set network.kerberoskeytabfile /var/opt/mssql/secrets/mssql.keytab
/opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf set network.privilegedadaccount sqluser

kinit administrator@LAB.LOCAL # we need to use a privileged user

adutil user create --name sqluser -distname CN=sqluser,CN=Users,DC=lab,DC=local --password 'P@ssw0rd'

# Register SPNs to the principal created above. We use port 20001/tcp for the SQL Server instance

adutil spn addauto -n sqluser -s MSSQLSvc -H tf-ubuntu01.lab.local -p 20001

adutil keytab createauto -k /var/opt/mssql/secrets/mssql.keytab -p 20001 -H tf-ubuntu01.lab.local --password 'P@ssw0rd' -s MSSQLSvc

# Add an entry in the keytab for the principal name and its password that will be used by SQL Server to connect to AD

adutil keytab create -k /var/opt/mssql/secrets/mssql.keytab -p sqluser --password 'P@ssw0rd!'

# Set proper permissions to the mssql.keytab file

chown mssql. /var/opt/mssql/secrets/mssql.keytab

chmod 440 /var/opt/mssql/secrets/mssql.keytab

# Configure SQL Server to use the keytab

/opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf set network.kerberoskeytabfile /var/opt/mssql/secrets/mssql.keytab

/opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf set network.privilegedadaccount sqluser

Test the connections and the authentication scheme

Let’s create an AD-based SQL Server login:

CREATE LOGIN [LAB\cviorel] FROM WINDOWS;
SELECT name FROM sys.server_principals;

1 2	CREATE LOGIN [LAB\cviorel] FROM WINDOWS; SELECT name FROM sys.server_principals;

Connecting as a domain user from the Linux box:

Let’s verify the authentication scheme:

sqlcmd -S localhost,20001 -U SA -h -1 -s, -W -Q '
SELECT DES.session_id, DES.login_name, DES.program_name, DES.host_name, DEC.auth_scheme, DEC.client_tcp_port 
FROM sys.dm_exec_sessions AS DES JOIN sys.dm_exec_connections AS DEC ON DEC.session_id = DES.session_id 
WHERE DES.session_id <> @@SPID;'

sqlcmd -S localhost,20001 -U SA -h -1 -s, -W -Q '

SELECT DES.session_id, DES.login_name, DES.program_name, DES.host_name, DEC.auth_scheme, DEC.client_tcp_port

FROM sys.dm_exec_sessions AS DES JOIN sys.dm_exec_connections AS DEC ON DEC.session_id = DES.session_id

WHERE DES.session_id <> @@SPID;'

Conclusion

Our setup is now complete and we managed to perform all the required operations from a Linux machine. The same can be applied to provision SQL Server running on Linux containers. This also should apply if you’re running in the cloud.

DTExec: The package execution returned DTSER_FAILURE (1)

Posted by cviorel on September 11, 2014 No comments | This post has 1,054 views.

What to do when a SQL backup job created with SQL server Maintenance Plans fails with this error?

DTExec: The package execution returned DTSER_FAILURE (1).

1	DTExec: The package execution returned DTSER_FAILURE (1).

Investigate! No useful information in the logs.
Previously that day I dropped a few unneeded databases so maybe the Maintenance Plan was still referencing them. Everything looked good when the Maintenance Plan was opened in SSMS (it was configured to backup “SELECTED” databases), I could not find any reference to the deleted databases. Under the hood, the Maintenance Plan was still trying to backup those deleted databases because when I clicked OK and then hit Save, that Maintenance Plan was refreshed and everything worked just fine.

So always try to find the root cause.

cviorel.com

Tag Archives: SQL Server

My SSMS Settings: A Visual Guide

1. Editor Tab and Status Bar

2. Advanced Execution Settings

3. Query Results to Grid

4. Query Results to Text

5. SQL Server Object Explorer Options

6. Query Output Formatting

Configure Active Directory authentication with SQL Server on Linux

Prepare the Domain Controller

Join the Linux host to the domain

Install adutil

Create a domain user using adutil

Install SQL Server instance on the Linux host

Create an AD user for SQL Server and set the ServicePrincipalName (SPN) using adutil

Test the connections and the authentication scheme

Conclusion

DTExec: The package execution returned DTSER_FAILURE (1)

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cviorel.com

Tag Archives: SQL Server

My SSMS Settings: A Visual Guide

1. Editor Tab and Status Bar

2. Advanced Execution Settings

3. Query Results to Grid

4. Query Results to Text

5. SQL Server Object Explorer Options

6. Query Output Formatting

Configure Active Directory authentication with SQL Server on Linux

Prepare the Domain Controller

Join the Linux host to the domain

Install adutil

Create a domain user using adutil

Install SQL Server instance on the Linux host

Create an AD user for SQL Server and set the ServicePrincipalName (SPN) using adutil

Test the connections and the authentication scheme

Conclusion

DTExec: The package execution returned DTSER_FAILURE (1)

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