SQL Server Tips

Why Setting Up Right SQL Job Owner Matters?

Updated
2 min read
Written by
Mark Varnas

Users leave the organization.

When a login is disabled, deleted, or Active Directory is unavailable, the job may stop working.

The best practices recommend you set all SQL job owners to SA accounts.

Note: You might have a different approach, such as creating an account or login specifically for SQL Agent jobs.

How to verify the owner of all SQL Server Agent jobs?

You may use the query below to check the jobs and their owners:

SELECT sj.name AS [Job Name]
	,sj.[description] AS [Job Description]
	,SUSER_SNAME(sj.owner_sid) AS [Job Owner]
	,sj.date_created AS [Date Created]
	,sj.[enabled] AS [Job Enabled]
	,sc.name AS [Category Name]
FROM msdb.dbo.sysjobs AS sj WITH (NOLOCK)
INNER JOIN msdb.dbo.syscategories AS sc WITH (NOLOCK) ON sj.category_id = sc.category_id
ORDER BY sj.name
OPTION (RECOMPILE);

How to change SQL Server Agent jobs ownership?

  1. Using SSMS, click on Agent Server.
  2. Expand Jobs, right-click the Job Name, and select Properties.
  3. Change the property owner to SA.

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Article by
Mark Varnas
Founder | CEO | SQL Veteran
Hey, I'm Mark, one of the guys behind Red9. I make a living performance tuning SQL Servers and making them more stable.

1 thought on “Why Setting Up Right SQL Job Owner Matters?”

  1. Actually, it’s not best practice for the sa account to own jobs. That causes problems with SSIS jobs and the use of proxy accounts. You should test out creating a dummy SQL account–probably one without logon privileges and with at most a SQLAgentUserRole role–to own your jobs.

    Reply

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