Default Trace - Kankuru

Default Trace reader is available since the version 1.4.5

Did you know that a trace is actually running on your SQL Server ? Except if you disabled it, the default trace should run on your server. You don’t trust me ? Execute this query :

SELECT * FROM sys.traces WHERE id = 1

Ok, now I convinced you, no ? 🙂

If the default trace is disabled, you can enable it with this code

sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1;
GO
RECONFIGURE;
GO
sp_configure 'default trace enabled', 1;
GO
RECONFIGURE;
GO

What’s this trace ?

This is a simple lightweight trace that is collecting lot of useful information. For example, if someone create an object, add permission, start an audit, execute a query with missing statistics, you’ll have a row in this trace

Default Trace reader

This tool uses 4 queries in KMO to get data :

GetTraceCategories : return the list of all categories (to fill the combobox)

ReadDefaultTrace : this method returns the rows from the default trace using sys.fn_trace_gettable. Data are filtered by date and may be aslo filtered by category. By default, the row count is limited to 1000 for performance matters.

DefaultTraceCountByCategory : return the row count group by category. List of categories is available in sys.trace_categories.

DefaultTraceCountByEvent : return the row count group by event. List of events is available in sys.trace_events.

default Trace