03.17.07

Dedicated Administrator Connection

Posted in DBA, Microsoft Sql server, TSQL at 1:44 pm by Hedwig Lodrigo

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 provides a dedicated administrator connection (DAC). The DAC allows an administrator to access a running instance of SQL Server Database Engine to troubleshoot problems on the server-even when the server is unresponsive to other client connections. The DAC is available through the sqlcmd utility and

SQL Server Management Studio, only one person can login on it.
By default it only accepts local connections. To change it to accept remote

connections use:

sp_configure ‘remote admin connections’, 1;
GO
RECONFIGURE;
GO

Using a DAC
Open Management studio, and open a new Query connection to admin:instance using a

sys admin account. You cannot use the Object Explorer with DAC. If you just open an

try to connect to the server you end up with this error:

Dedicated administrator connections are not supported. (ObjectExplorer)

You need to open the management console then cancel the connect to server window

and select a new querry and go admin:servername\instance

Here you can execute querries like

select Session_id, login_time, cpu_time, memory_usage, reads, writes, login_name

from sys.dm_exec_sessions WITH (NOLOCK)

Leave a Comment