How to disable SQL Server Management Studio for a

Question

Is there a way to prevent users from getting into SQL Server Management Studio so that they can't just edit table rows manually? They still need to access the tables by running my application.

Answer 1

• Don't let them know what the database login is.
• If you can't restrict the login, use stored procedures exclusively for updates and disable any CREATE,DELETE,INSERT, or UPDATE permissions for that user.

Answer 2

If your application is running as a service/user account then only that account requires access to the database. The individual users' account do not require any access to the database and therefore they won't even have read access. Your app will be the gateway to the data.

If the users are running the application under their user accounts then grant them read-only permission. You can simply add them to the db_datareader role.

Hope this helps!

Answer 3

An Application Role will allow you to secure database objects to your application instead of the logged on user.

Answer 4

You DO NOT need to worry about them having access to the tool. Simply make sure they do not know any of the SQL logins for the specific Databases that have read/write permissions, if they do, change the password. If they have access to the DB via Windows Authentication, make sure that they are in a datareader role. You can use roles to manage what the users can do in SQL.

Answer 5

You can use the DENY VIEW ANY DATABASE command for the particular user(s). This is a new feature available in SQL Server 2008.

It prevents the user from seeing the system catalog (sys.databases, sys.sysdatabases, etc.) and therefore makes the DB invisible to them in SQL Management Studio (SSMS).

Run this command from the Master Database:

DENY VIEW ANY DATABASE TO 'loginName'

The user is still able to access the database through your application. However, if they log in through SSMS, your database will not show up in the list of databases and if they open a query window, your database will not appear in the dropdown.

However, this is not fool-proof. If the user is smart enough to run the Query Command:

USE <YourDatabaseName>

Then they will see the database in the Query Analyzer.

Since this solution is taking you 90% there, I would give the database some obscure name not let the users know the name of the database.