Permissions of the SA

The SA handles tasks not specific to an application. There are no restrictions on what the SA can do within SQL Server. This gives the SA the ability to repair any damage inadvertently done to the permissions system.

There are several statements that only the SA can execute; these cannot be granted to any other user:

• DISK INIT
• DISK REFIT
• DISK REINIT
• DISK MIRROR
• DISK REMIRROR
• DISK UNMIRROR
• KILL
• RECONFIGURE
• SHUTDOWN
• Some DBCC operations (for example, pintable)

Only the SA can grant CREATE DATABASE permission. Control of this statement is reserved for the SA because it determines the amount and location of the storage allocated for each database. ALTER DATABASE permission on a database defaults to the owner of that database, but only if he or she has CREATE DATABASE permission. ALTER DATABASE permission cannot be transferred. In addition, the SA is the only user allowed to add and drop extended stored procedures.