Default Trace in SQL Server 2005

vishah — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 21:03:00 GMT

The Default Trace is something completely new that Microsoft has implemented to audit certain events in the system, which you can report on via Management Reports. To verify if the default trace is running, run following query:

select * from sys.configurations where configuration_id = 1568

In order to check whether you have active traces runnig, execute:

select * from ::fn_trace_getinfo(0)

For more information on trace properties and server side traces see fn_trace_getinfo and sp_trace_create in BOL.

If you are concerned about these traces, you can turn them off by running following:

sp_configure 'default trace enabled', 0

But should you turn it off? Before you make that determination, take a closer look at what is being captured. By opening the log file in the new Profiler, you can see in the event matrix exactly what is being captured. Below is a list of the events the default trace is capturing. It appears that all columns available for the trace events are being captured.

Database

Data file auto grow
Data file auto shrink
Database mirroring status change
Log file auto grow
Log file auto shrink

Errors and Warnings

Errorlog
Hash warning
Missing Column Statistics
Missing Join Predicate
Sort Warning

Full-Text

FT Crawl Aborted
FT Crawl Started
FT Crawl Stopped

Objects

Object Altered
Object Created
Object Deleted

Security Audit

Audit Add DB user event
Audit Add login to server role event
Audit Add Member to DB role event
Audit Add Role event
Audit Add login event
Audit Backup/Restore event
Audit Change Database owner
Audit DBCC event
Audit Database Scope GDR event (Grant, Deny, Revoke)
Audit Login Change Property event
Audit Login Failed
Audit Login GDR event
Audit Schema Object GDR event
Audit Schema Object Take Ownership
Audit Server Starts and Stops

Server

Server Memory Change

This trace seems to be fairly light-weight. Some of the auditing alerts are triggered from this trace, as well, in addition to the extremely cool, Management Reports dependence on these traces. BOL states, that "Default trace provides troubleshooting assistance to database administrators by ensuring that they have the log data necessary to diagnose problems the first time they occur." Also if you turn off the trace, you won't have the option to debug stored procedures from Management Studio 2005.

Vipul Shah's SQL Blogs : Default Traces

Default Trace in SQL Server 2005