Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Granting Execute Permissions to SQL Users

Granting exectution permission to users in SQL used to mean giving them DBO or granting permission to each stored proc. individually.

Last year I found a stored proc that would grant permissions when called but when new stored procs are created, you have to re-run it.

Today I found out that there is a way in SQL 2005 and later to create a new role that has execute permissions to all with the following Code:

/* CREATE A NEW ROLE */
CREATE ROLE db_executor

/* GRANT EXECUTE TO THE ROLE */
GRANT EXECUTE TO db_executor



After you have executed that script you can then see the role in the permissions list and assign it there. The user will then have permission to stored procedures added later.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

VMWare Tips

VMWare Player is free, and it works ok, the UI is a little slow, but it works well otherwise.

VMWare Server is also free, and it works well but does not support audio.

VMWare Converter is free, it can make a VM from a physical computer (as well as do some other things I haven't looked into yet)

I am very much a rookie at VMWare, but I have found out a couple things about VMWare workstation Settings:
  • It is a hassle to increase the size of the C:\ drive so make it big enough to start.
  • It is easy to add drives, but you have to format them in Windows before you can use them.
  • Use Bridged networking if you need to browse network shares.
  • Make sure the sum of RAM available to your VMs does not exceed the amount of RAM on your machine, leaving around 512mb for the root OS (for win XP pro).
  • Install VMWare tools or the UI is very clunky
  • Use the shared folders feature on the Options tab of the Settings dialog to share drives on the root OS with drives on the VM.
  • Don't take a snapshot of a paused machine, or a running machine if you ever want to clone it. You can't clone a running or paused snapshot.