Question

I’m not sure how to even ask this question. We are running SQL Server 2008 R2. I’m not the admin, but a programmer. I need to write an application that updates some database stuff at night. I’m going to set a flag to disable logins to the database, but I want to make a particular database unavailable to anyone except me, even if someone is already logged in to the database. My program will run nightly, as a batch file, presumably with admin privileges.

I’m expecting to produce something like a script of SQL commands. I could take the database offline, except I need to make modifications to it myself. Not sure the best way to handle this.

Answer 1

You can basically just set the database to “single-user” mode and use it exclusively – this T-SQL will do this:

USE master;
GO
ALTER DATABASE AdventureWorks2012
SET SINGLE_USER
WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE;
GO

(of course – replace AdventureWorks2012 with your own database name!)

This will make the database “single-user”, e.g. only you have access to it, and it will boot off any users that’s currently online, and will rollback all open transactions.

Read more about single user mode on MSDN!

This example sets the database to SINGLE_USER mode to obtain exclusive access. The termination option WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE is specified in the first ALTER DATABASE statement. This will cause all incomplete transactions to be rolled back and any other connections to the AdventureWorks2012 database to be immediately disconnected.