{"id":1868,"date":"2014-01-23T11:00:08","date_gmt":"2014-01-23T16:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sqlity.net\/en\/?p=1868"},"modified":"2015-10-26T17:58:21","modified_gmt":"2015-10-26T21:58:21","slug":"identify-sql-server-service-account-in-t-sql","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sqlity.net\/en\/1868\/identify-sql-server-service-account-in-t-sql\/","title":{"rendered":"How to identify the SQL Server Service Account in T-SQL"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Introduction<\/h3>\n

\nEvery once in a while you need to know the service account that is executing SQL Server, for example to grant SQL Server access to a new windows resource. When you are remoted to the machine running the instance in question already, you can just start the SQL Server Configuration Manager to find out. But sometimes it would just be quicker to use T-SQL for this.\n<\/p>\n

Identifying the SQL Server Service Account the Old (and Hard) Way<\/h3>\n

\nIn SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 there was no documented way. Some people used the undocumented xp_regread<\/span> to find that information in an undocumented place in the registry:\n<\/p>\n

\n[sql]\nDECLARE @sn NVARCHAR(128);<\/p>\n

EXEC master.dbo.xp_regread
\n 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE',
\n 'SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\services\\SQLSERVERAGENT',
\n 'ObjectName',
\n @sn OUTPUT;<\/p>\n

SELECT @sn;
\n[\/sql]\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\nYou can find more details about that approach and its inherent dangers here on stackoverflow<\/a>. (That is where I found above query too.)\n<\/p>\n

\nThis seems to work, but using undocumented ways always runs the risk of suddenly breaking because of a change Microsoft decided to implement.\n<\/p>\n

Identifying the SQL Server Service Account the New Way<\/h3>\n

\nSince SQL Server 2008R2 SP1 we have a documented way to get to this information: sys.dm_server_services<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nsys.dm_server_services<\/span> gives us information about the current state of the services related to SQL Server that are currently installed.
\nThe information includes the startup type, the startup time the path and file name of the executable and, you guessed it, the account that the service is running under.\n<\/p>\n


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