{"id":826,"date":"2009-06-16T18:27:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-16T18:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"\/blogs\/paul\/post\/Finding-out-who-dropped-a-table-using-the-transaction-log.aspx"},"modified":"2014-02-11T06:24:10","modified_gmt":"2014-02-11T14:24:10","slug":"finding-out-who-dropped-a-table-using-the-transaction-log","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/finding-out-who-dropped-a-table-using-the-transaction-log\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding out who dropped a table using the transaction log"},"content":{"rendered":"

I came across a question on ServerFault<\/a> this afternoon that inflamed my desire to be ultra-geeky (it was really already inflamed after teaching backup and restore internals all afternoon). Basically the question boiled down to how to find out who dropped a table if there’s no other way except the transaction log (e.g. no tracing is available, even the default trace). So I hacked around and figured out at least how to find out *when* a particular table was dropped plus who dropped it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Everything hinges on using undocumented commands to look into the transaction log. I’ve played with this before on the blog: fn_dblog<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

First off I created a script to create a database, populate a table and then drop it.<\/span><\/p>\n

USE [master];
\nGO
\nCREATE DATABASE [FnDbLogTest];
\nGO
\nUSE [FnDbLogTest];
\nGO<\/span><\/p>\n

CREATE TABLE [TestTable] (
\n[c1] INT IDENTITY,
\n[c2] CHAR (100) DEFAULT ‘a’);
\nGO
\nCREATE CLUSTERED INDEX [TT_CL] ON [TestTable] ([c1]);
\nGO
\nINSERT INTO [TestTable] DEFAULT VALUES;
\nGO<\/span><\/p>\n

SELECT OBJECT_ID (N’TestTable’);
\nGO<\/span><\/p>\n

DROP TABLE [TestTable];
\nGO<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First we need to find the transactions that drop tables in the log:<\/span><\/p>\n

SELECT [Transaction Id], [Begin Time], SUSER_SNAME ([Transaction SID]) AS [User]
\nFROM fn_dblog (NULL, NULL)
\nWHERE [Transaction Name] = N’DROPOBJ’;
\nGO<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The (NULL, NULL)<\/span> is the starting LSN and ending LSN to process – NULL means\u00a0process everything\u00a0available.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Results are:<\/span><\/p>\n

Transaction Id Begin Time\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 User
\n————– ———————– —————
\n0000:000000e0\u00a0 2009\/06\/16 18:23:03:320\u00a0APPLECROSS\\Paul<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, this only shows us that a table was dropped, not which table it was. There’s no way to get the name of the table that was dropped, only the object ID – so you’ll need to have some other way to determine what the table ID is if there are multiple table drops and only one of them is malignant.<\/span><\/p>\n

This code will give you the object ID of the dropped table:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

SELECT TOP (1) [Lock Information] FROM fn_dblog (NULL, NULL)
\nWHERE [Transaction Id] = ‘0000:000000e0’
\nAND [Lock Information] LIKE ‘%SCH_M OBJECT%’;
\nGO<\/span><\/p>\n

Lock Information
\n————————————————
\nHoBt 0:ACQUIRE_LOCK_SCH_M OBJECT: 25:245575913:0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The 25:245575913\u00a0is the database ID and object ID of the table that was dropped, and you can look up the object ID in an earlier backup of the database.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now you can go find whoever it was and take whatever action you deem appropriate :-)<\/span><\/p>\n

Hope this helps!<\/span><\/p>\n

PS If you find the you don’t get enough info from fn_dblog<\/span>, try turning on trace flag 2537. It allows the function to look at *all* possible log, not just the active log.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I came across a question on ServerFault this afternoon that inflamed my desire to be ultra-geeky (it was really already inflamed after teaching backup and restore internals all afternoon). Basically the question boiled down to how to find out who dropped a table if there’s no other way except the transaction log (e.g. no tracing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,98,100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-example-scripts","category-transaction-log","category-undocumented-commands"],"yoast_head":"\nFinding out who dropped a table using the transaction log - Paul S. Randal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/finding-out-who-dropped-a-table-using-the-transaction-log\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Finding out who dropped a table using the transaction log - Paul S. Randal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I came across a question on ServerFault this afternoon that inflamed my desire to be ultra-geeky (it was really already inflamed after teaching backup and restore internals all afternoon). 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