Introduction

Permissions are the rights to access the database objects. Permissions can be
granted to a user or role to allow that user or role to perform operations such as
selection, insertion or modification of data rows.

Each database object has an owner. By default, the owner is the creator of an object,
but the ownership can be transferred later after the object has been created. In
addition to the owner, the members of the sysadmin fixed server roles have full
permissions on all objects in all user and system databases.

There is also a public role. The public role is a special database role to which each
database user belongs. The public role contains default access permissions for any
user who can access the database. This database role cannot be dropped, but it is
strongly recommended not to grant superfluous permissions to the public role,
because each databases user has the public role's permissions.

SQL Server 2000 provides the GRANT, DENY, and REVOKE statements to give or take
away permissions from a user or role.

Permissions Types
To perform any activity in a database, user must have the appropriate permissions.
These permissions fall into three categories, which we call permissions types:

• Permissions to work with data and execute procedures (object permissions).

• Permissions to create a database or an item in the database (statement
permissions).
• Permissions to utilize permissions granted to predefined roles (implied
permissions).

SQL Server 2000 supports granting or revoking user rights to the following
permissions types:

Object Permissions

The object permissions are the permissions to act on the database objects (such as
tables, stored procedures and views). They consist of the following permissions:

• SELECT
Enables a user to select or read data from a table or view. The SELECT
permission can be applied to individual columns within a table or view, and
may be applied to user-defined functions.
• INSERT
Enables a user to insert new data to a table or view.
• DELETE
Enables a user to delete data from a table or view.
• UPDATE
Enables a user to update data in a table or view. The UPDATE permission can
 be applied to individual columns within a table or view, not just the entire
table.
• EXECUTE
Enables a user to execute a stored procedure.
• DRI (declarative referential integrity)
Enables a user to add foreign key constraints on a table.

Statement Permissions

These are the permissions to create a database or an object in the database. These
permissions are applied to the statement itself, rather than to a specific object
defined in the database. They consist of the following permissions:

• BACKUP DATABASE
The BACKUP DATABASE statement is used to back up an entire database or
one or more files or filegroups.
• BACKUP LOG
The BACKUP LOG statement is used to back up the transaction log.
• CREATE DATABASE
The CREATE DATABASE statement is used to create a new database and the
files used to store the database.
• CREATE DEFAULT
The CREATE DEFAULT statement is used to create an object called a default.
• CREATE FUNCTION
The CREATE FUNCTION statement is used to create a user-defined function,
which is a saved Transact-SQL routine that returns a value.
• CREATE PROCEDURE
The CREATE PROCEDURE statement is used to create a stored procedure,
which is a saved collection of Transact-SQL statements.
• CREATE RULE
The CREATE RULE statement is used to create an object called a rule.
• CREATE TABLE
The CREATE TABLE statement is used to create a new table.
• CREATE VIEW
The CREATE VIEW statement is used to create an object called a view.

Implied Permissions

These are the permissions granted to the predefined roles (such as fixed server roles
or fixed database roles). For example, a member of the db_owner fixed database
role has full permissions in the database.

Managing Permissions
You can use the GRANT, DENY, and REVOKE statements to give or take away
permission from a user or role.

The GRANT statement is used to give permissions to a user or role. By using the
GRANT statement, it is possible to assign permissions to both statements as well as
objects. You can use the GRANT statement with the WITH GRANT OPTION clause to
permit the user or role receiving the permission to further grant/revoke access to
other accounts.

This example grants the SELECT permission on the authors table to Alex

GRANT SELECT ON authors TO Alex

The DENY statement is used to deny a permission from a security account in the
current database and prevents the security account from inheriting the permission
through its group or role memberships. You can use the DENY statement to deny
both statements and objects permissions.

The following example denies the user Alex SELECT permissions to the authors table:

DENY SELECT ON authors TO Alex

The REVOKE statement is used to remove a previously granted or denied permission

from a user in the current database. You can use the REVOKE statement to remove
both statements and objects permissions. You can specify the GRANT OPTION FOR
clause with the REVOKE statement to remove the WITH GRANT OPTION permissions.
Therefore, the user will have the objects permissions, but cannot grant the
permissions to other users. Specify the CASCADE clause along with the WITH GRANT
OPTION clause, if the permissions being revoked were originally granted using the
WITH GRANT OPTION setting.

The following example revokes SELECT permissions to the authors table from the
user, Alex:

REVOKE SELECT ON authors TO Alex

Use the WITH GRANT OPTION setting very carefully, because in this case users can
grant permissions to the objects to other users and it will be more difficult to manage
security.

Do not grant the superfluous permissions to the public role, because each database
user has the public role's permissions.