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SQL Server Security Interview Questions

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During the interview I always like to ask below security questions to DBA. I found that sometimes DBAs are not able to answer these questions.

Question 1: What will you do if you lost rights of your SQL Server instance?

We can use the below options

  1. Dedicated Administrator Connection
  2. BUILIN\Administrator Group (Incase its rights are not revoked)
  3. Final Option is to change the registry value
  4. You can change authentication mode via registry 

Question 2: – What is SQL Injection?

SQL Injection is developed where unhandled\unexpected SQL commands are passed to SQL Server in a malicious manner.  It is a problem because unknowingly data can be stolen, deleted, updated, inserted or corrupted. 

Question 3: – What is the Guest user account in SQL Server?  What login is it mapped to it?   

The Guest user account is created by default in all databases and is used when explicit permissions are not granted to access an object.  It is not mapped directly to any login, but can be used by any login.  Depending on your security needs, it may make sense to drop the Guest user account, in all databases except Master and TempDB 

Question 4: – What is the use of BUILTIN\Administrators Group in SQL Server?

Any Windows login in BUILTIN\Administrators group is by default a SQL Server system administrator. This single group can be used to manage administrators from a Windows and SQL Server perspective

SQL Server 2008 Active-Passive/Active-Active Cluster Installation

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Like SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008 supports clustering using both the Standard and Enterprise editions. The Standard edition supports a two-node cluster, and the Enterprise edition supports the maximum number of nodes that the OS supports 

The biggest changes in SQL Server 2008 cluster is that you can now use DHCP for clustering and use IP addresses from different subnets for each side of the cluster. The ability to use IP addresses from different subnets is most useful for creating multisite clusters, called geographically distributed clusters.

SQL Server Cluster Installation

Step 1: I hope you had done with all the pre-requisites required by cluster.If you’re installing SQL Server 2008 in a cluster on Windows 2003, you’ll need to download and install the hotfix specified in the Microsoft article at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937444  before you can install SQL Server 2008.

Note: Installation of above hotfix requires a reboot, so you have to cancel out of the installer at this point and restart the process after installing that hotfix on all your cluster nodes.

Step 2: Open SQL Server 2008 installation executable file from your CD\DVD\Shared location

Double click on installation.exe and you will find the below screen. Now select New SQL Server Failover Cluster installation option highlighted as in below image. (Note: For standalone installation we have to select standalone option)

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Step 3: Once you have selected Step 2 option, installation will check for setup support rules to identify the problem. If it is failed due to any reason, you have to correct the issue. Please find the below screen shot. If it passed click on OK command button.

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Step 4: Installation wizard will install the setup support files, click on Install command button

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Step 5: This step will walk you through all the required information as below. Click on Next button

1. Product Key

2. Licence Terms

3. Feature Selection

4. Disk Space Reuirements

5. Error and Usage Reporting

6. Cluster instllation Rules

7. Ready to install

8. Installation Progress

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Step 6: Enter Product Key or It will take automatically. See the below image for it.

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Step 7: Select required features, which you want install.

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Step 8: Specify the Network Name/Virtual Name for SQL Server to failover. As we are installing Active-Passive cluster we have to specify one virtual/network name. (Note: For Active-Active clustering you have specify different network names as per the number of nodes)

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Step 9: SQL Server will review the disk space requirement for the features you have selected

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Step 10: This step will create a new cluster resource group for your SQL server failover. Please see the note in the image.

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Step 11: Select shared cluster disk resources for your SQL Server failover cluster

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Step 12: Here you have to select network resources for your SQL Server failover cluster. You have to add IP address as well.

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Step 13: Here you have to specify the service account for SQL Server services. It is a best practice always keeps SQL Services in cluster in manual mode

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Step 14: Specify the authentication more and SA password in account provisioning tab, configure the location of the data files, log files, temp database in data directories tab and enable file stream as per the requirement

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Step 14: Specify the authentication more and SA password in account provisioning tab, configure the location of the data files, log files, temp database in data directories tab and enable file stream as per the requirement

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Step 15: Select check boxes as per your requirement, I haven’t checked any option. Proceed with the next button

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Step 16: Installation wizard will check the cluster installation rules, please correct if you found any failure and proceed with the next button

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Step 17: Now your SQL Server cluster is ready to install. Click on Install button

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Step 18: Apply the required Service Pack/Patch and reboot the server

Step 19: Once installation is done on this node, we have to proceed with the installation of SQL Server on the other cluster nodes. SQL Server 2005 was the last edition of SQL Server to automatically install SQL Server on all nodes at once.  Beginning with SQL Server 2008, we must manually install and patch each cluster node individually. This process allows for less downtime as we are patching the cluster or upgrading your cluster from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008.

Step 20 Installation on the other nodes is similar to installing on the first node except that we have select the Add Node to a SQL Server failover cluster option from the initial menu. The same software requirements apply to the other nodes in the cluster, so the installer will handle the verification and installation of these components as well.

Because most of the settings are picked up from the other node(s) in the cluster that already have SQL Server installed on them, the process of adding a node to the cluster is bit shorter than installing on the first node 

Step 20 Installation on the other nodes is similar to installing on the first node except that we have select the Add Node to a SQL Server failover cluster option from the initial menu. The same software requirements apply to the other nodes in the cluster, so the installer will handle the verification and installation of these components as well.

Because most of the settings are picked up from the other node(s) in the cluster that already have SQL Server installed on them, the process of adding a node to the cluster is bit shorter than installing on the first node

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