SQL Server sp_help : how to limit the number of output windows - sql-server-2008

Normally successful execution of
sp_help [object_name]
in SQL Server returns a total of 7 output windows with various results out of which normally I am interested in only 2 windows namely the one with all the column information and the one with the constraints.
Is there a way I can tell SQLserver to only display these while formulating the command?

Short answer: no, you can't do this directly because the procedure is written to return that data, and TSQL has no mechanism for accessing specific result sets.
Long answer: but you can easily get the same information from other procedures or directly from the system catalog:
sp_columns, sp_helpconstraint (this is actually called by sp_help) etc.
sys.columns, sys.objects etc.
There's also the option of copying the source code from sp_help and using it as the basis of a new procedure that you create yourself, although personally I would just write it myself from scratch. If you do decide to write your own stored proc, you might find this question relevant too.

Related

Save MySql 'Show' result in db

So I'm kind of stumped.
I have a MySql project that involves a database table that is being manipulated and altered by scripts on a regular basis. This isn't so unusual, but I need to automate a script to run (after hours, when changes aren't happening) that would save the result of the following:
SHOW CREATE TABLE [table-name];
This command generates the ready-to-run script that would create the (empty) table in it's current state.
In SqlWorkbench and Navicat it displays the result of this SHOW command in a field in a result set, as if it was the result of a SELECT statement.
Ideally, I want to take into a variable in a procedure, and change the table name; adding a '-mm-dd-yyyy' to end of it, so I could show the day-to-day changes in the table schema on an active server.
However, I can't seem to be able to do that. Unlike a Select result set, I can't use it like that. I can't get it in a variable, or save it to a temporary, or physical table or anything. I even tried to return this as a value in a function, from which I got the error that a function cannot return a result set - which explains why it's displayed like one in the db clients.
I suspect that this is a security thing in MySql? If so, I can totally understand why and see the dangers exposed to a hacker, but this isn't a public-facing box at all, and I have full root/admin access to it. Hopefully somebody has already tackled this problem before.
This is on MySql 8, btw.
[Edit] After my first initial comments, I need to add; I'm not concerned about the data with this question whatsoever, but rather just these schema changes.
What I'd really -like- to do is this:
SELECT `Create Table` FROM ( SHOW CREATE TABLE carts )
But this seems to be mixing apples and oranges, as SHOW and SELECT aren't created equal, although they both seem to return the same sort of object
You cannot do it in the MySQL stored procedure language.
https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/show.html says:
Many MySQL APIs (such as PHP) enable you to treat the result returned from a SHOW statement as you would a result set from a SELECT; see Chapter 29, Connectors and APIs, or your API documentation for more information. In addition, you can work in SQL with results from queries on tables in the INFORMATION_SCHEMA database, which you cannot easily do with results from SHOW statements. See Chapter 26, INFORMATION_SCHEMA Tables.
What is absent from this paragraph is any mention of treating the results of SHOW commands like the results of SELECT queries in other contexts. There is no support for setting a variable to the result of a SHOW command, or using INTO, or running SHOW in a subquery.
So you can capture the result returned by a SHOW command in a client programming language (Java, Python, PHP, etc.), and I suggest you do this.
In theory, all the information used by SHOW CREATE TABLE is accessible in the INFORMATION_SCHEMA tables (mostly TABLES and COLUMNS), but formatting a complete CREATE TABLE statement is a non-trivial exercise, and I wouldn't attempt it. For one thing, there are new features in every release of MySQL, e.g. new data types and table options, etc. So even if you could come up with the right query to produce this output, in a couple of years it would be out of date and it would be a thankless code maintenance chore to update it.
The closest solution I can think of, in pure MySQL, is to regularly clone the table structure (no data), like so:
CREATE TABLE backup_20220618 LIKE my_table;
As far as I know, to get your hands on the full explicit CREATE TABLE statement, as a string, would require the use of an external tool like mysqldump which was designed specifically for that purpose.

Can Google Data Studio call a MySQL stored procedure with parameters and consume the result set?

All--
(Ducking to avoid the flames....) I would like to use Google Data Studio to create simple reports from MySQL data. For each of several reports, I have written a corresponding MySQL stored procedure that has a single parameter, pEndDate (a CHAR(10) string in the format yyyy-MM-dd). It seems simple enough to use MySQL tables and views as data sources for Google Data Studio, but I haven't seen any documentation or blog posts re: stored procedures. Any and all comments are welcome.
Thanks,
Matthew P. Seltzer
P.S. I am running MySQL 5.6 on Windows 10 Pro.
MPS
You may try making the stored procedure a function then you can call that in a SELECT, you may need to experiment a bet with getting the function to trigger before the datasource selecting from the views and tables, but it's worth a shot.

No columns returned SSIS

I am implementing a SSIS package and currently trying to do the following.
Truncate the destination table
Fetch the data by executing the stored procedure and insert it into the destination table.
I have created an Execute SQL task to address step 1 and dataflow with oledb source and oledb destination to address the second point. It been working successfully so far but isn't working for one my stored procedure that uses temp tables.
When I edit the oledb source and click the preview button, I get the error no column returned
I know that SSIS has an issue with generating column while executing stored procedures that depend on temp tables. I have converted the stored proc to use temporary table variables and its now able to return columns in SSIS when I do a preview. The only downside is that the stored procedure is taking longer time to execute. Its taking 1 hour 15 mins as compared to 15 mins while using temp tables.
I did see a suggestion to use SET FMTONLY before executing the stored procedure as an alternate solution to changing to temp table variables but that didn't seem to work as I am getting syntax or permission denied error.
Could somebody tell me a solution to my problem which does not compromise on the performance.
Sounds like you've already read all the approaches to using Temp tables in SSIS, including the IF 1=0... trick? If you haven't seen that one yet, google it.
You say that using Table Variables causes your stored procedure to take about 5 times longer than using Temp Tables. The most likely reason for that is that you are indexing your temp tables but not your table variables. If you didn't know that table variables can be indexed, they can. You might try that.
Finally, a solution that you haven't mentioned is that you can replace your temporary table with a real table that gets truncated when you're done using it.
Short comment:
Try EXEC WITH RESULT SETS and specify the metadata yourself for a proc with temp tables; or use the Script Component as a source and specify the Output columns yourself.
Long comment:
Technically speaking, it is the driver/database you are using in SSIS that would decide the behavior when working with temp tables.
Metadata is an important factor when using SSIS's pipeline components. By metadata, I mean the names of the columns, their data types etc that a pipeline component uses. When designing a data flow, someone/something should provide this metadata to the components that require it.
In most cases, SSIS automatically retreives the metadata. Components that do not connect to a external data source, like Conditional Split etc, get their metadata from the other components they are connected to. For the pipeline components that connect to a external data source (like Oledb source, oledb destination, Lookup etc.), SSIS provides a mechanism to get this metadata without human involvement. This mechanism involves the driver connecting to the database and retrieving the metadata of the output. If the driver/database is capable of returning the metadata, then that metadata is used. If the driver/database is incapable, then you get the errors you are seeing. The rest of my comments are based on the assumption that you are using a SQL Server database in your question.
When working with a SQL Server database in SSIS, typically, we use the native client drivers provided by Microsoft. When trying to get the metadata, these drivers try to get the metadata without actually executing the SQL Statement (actual execution can have side effects; and also, might take more than a few seconds/minutes/hours; and you dont want side effects and long wait times during package design time.) So to get the metadata, the driver relies on the metadata of the actual objects used in the sql command. If the command uses a physical table or view, SQL Server already has the metadata available and can supply it to the driver. If it is a temp table, SQL Server does not have the metadata until it can create the temp table. If using FMT ONLY option, you can use it in such a way to create the temp tables, but avoid any heavy processing/side affects and thus be able to retrieve metadata without penalties. Post 2012, these native client drivers rely on some newer functionality to retrieve metadata than the drivers before 2012. In 2012 and after, the driver uses the sp_describe_first_result_set proc to retrieve metadata. So, whether you can get metadata or not is determined by the ability of the sp_describe_first_result_set proc.
So while SSIS can automatically get the metadata (because of the driver/database), it does not automatically get the metadata in some cases (again because of the driver/database). In cases involving the second scenario, some other process (typically a human) can help the driver infer metadata or provide the metadata to the component directly.
To help the driver, in case of SQL Server 2012 and after, you can use the WITH RESULTSETS clause to specify the output metadata. When this clause is present, the driver will use it and doesnt try to query the metadata from system objects; and thus avoid the error which you would otherwise get. If you are using the drivers that came with SQL Server 2008, you can use FMT ONLY. This option is at the driver/database level.
Another option could be to use a Script Component as the Source and in the Output columns, you can specify the columns/metadata. SSIS would not try to retrieve metadata from the datasource in this case, but would rely on the definitions you provided in the Output section of the Script Component.
As you can see, both options involve a human (or some other process) specifying the metadata instead of SSIS trying to retrieve the metadata in an automated fashion. I would prefer the first option if working with SQL Server and the second option if working with databases like MySql.

Mysql Workbench - The best way to organize running frequently used SQL queries while development

I'm a java dev who uses Mysql Workbench as a database client and IntelliJ IDEA as an IDE. Every day I do SQL queries to the database from 5 up to 50 times a day.
Is there a convenient way to save and re-run frequently used queries in Mysql Workbench/IntelliJ IDEA so that I can:
avoid typing a full query which has already been used again
smoothly access a list of queries I've already used (e.g by auto-completion)
If there is no way to do it using Mysql Workbench / IDEA, could you please advise any good tools providing this functionality?
Thanks!
Create Stored Procedures, one per query (or sequence of queries). Give them short names (to avoid needing auto-completion).
For example, to find out how many rows in table foo (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM foo;).
One-time setup:
DELIMITER //
CREATE PROCEDURE foo_ct
BEGIN;
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM foo;
END //
DELIMITER ;
Usage:
CALL foo_ct();
You can pass arguments in in order to make minor variations. Passing in a table name is somewhat complex, but numbers of dates, etc, are practical and probably easy.
If you have installed SQLyog for your mysql then you can use Favorites menu option in which you can save your query and in one click it will automatically writes the saved query on Query Editor.
The previous answers are correct - depending on the version of the Query Browser they are either called Favorites or Snippets - the problem being you can't create sub-folders to group them. And keeping tabs open is an option - but sometimes the browser 'dies' - and you're back to ground 0. So the obvious solution I came up with - create a database table! I have a few 'metadata' fields for descriptions - the project a query is associated to; problem the query solves; and the actual query.
You could keep your query library in an SQL file and load that when WB opens (it's automatically opened when you restart WB and that file was open on last close). When you want to run a specific query place the caret in it's text and press Ctrl+Enter (Cmd+Enter on Mac) to run only this query. The organization of that SQL file is totally up to you. You have more freedom than any "favorites" solution can give you. You can even have more than one file with grouped statements.
Additionally, MySQL Workbench has a query history (see the Output Tab), which is saved to disk, so you can return to a query even month's after you wrote it.

MySQL Injection - Use SELECT query to UPDATE/DELETE

I've got one easy question: say there is a site with a query like:
SELECT id, name, message FROM messages WHERE id = $_GET['q'].
Is there any way to get something updated/deleted in the database (MySQL)? Until now I've never seen an injection that was able to delete/update using a SELECT query, so, is it even possible?
Before directly answering the question, it's worth noting that even if all an attacker can do is read data that he shouldn't be able to, that's usually still really bad. Consider that by using JOINs and SELECTing from system tables (like mysql.innodb_table_stats), an attacker who starts with a SELECT injection and no other knowledge of your database can map your schema and then exfiltrate the entirety of the data that you have in MySQL. For the vast majority of databases and applications, that already represents a catastrophic security hole.
But to answer the question directly: there are a few ways that I know of by which injection into a MySQL SELECT can be used to modify data. Fortunately, they all require reasonably unusual circumstances to be possible. All example injections below are given relative to the example injectable query from the question:
SELECT id, name, message FROM messages WHERE id = $_GET['q']
1. "Stacked" or "batched" queries.
The classic injection technique of just putting an entire other statement after the one being injected into. As suggested in another answer here, you could set $_GET['q'] to 1; DELETE FROM users; -- so that the query forms two statements which get executed consecutively, the second of which deletes everything in the users table.
In mitigation
Most MySQL connectors - notably including PHP's (deprecated) mysql_* and (non-deprecated) mysqli_* functions - don't support stacked or batched queries at all, so this kind of attack just plain doesn't work. However, some do - notably including PHP's PDO connector (although the support can be disabled to increase security).
2. Exploiting user-defined functions
Functions can be called from a SELECT, and can alter data. If a data-altering function has been created in the database, you could make the SELECT call it, for instance by passing 0 OR SOME_FUNCTION_NAME() as the value of $_GET['q'].
In mitigation
Most databases don't contain any user-defined functions - let alone data-altering ones - and so offer no opportunity at all to perform this sort of exploit.
3. Writing to files
As described in Muhaimin Dzulfakar's (somewhat presumptuously named) paper Advanced MySQL Exploitation, you can use INTO OUTFILE or INTO DUMPFILE clauses on a MySQL select to dump the result into a file. Since, by using a UNION, any arbitrary result can be SELECTed, this allows writing new files with arbitrary content at any location that the user running mysqld can access. Conceivably this can be exploited not merely to modify data in the MySQL database, but to get shell access to the server on which it is running - for instance, by writing a PHP script to the webroot and then making a request to it, if the MySQL server is co-hosted with a PHP server.
In mitigation
Lots of factors reduce the practical exploitability of this otherwise impressive-sounding attack:
MySQL will never let you use INTO OUTFILE or INTO DUMPFILE to overwrite an existing file, nor write to a folder that doesn't exist. This prevents attacks like creating a .ssh folder with a private key in the mysql user's home directory and then SSHing in, or overwriting the mysqld binary itself with a malicious version and waiting for a server restart.
Any halfway decent installation package will set up a special user (typically named mysql) to run mysqld, and give that user only very limited permissions. As such, it shouldn't be able to write to most locations on the file system - and certainly shouldn't ordinarily be able to do things like write to a web application's webroot.
Modern installations of MySQL come with --secure-file-priv set by default, preventing MySQL from writing to anywhere other than a designated data import/export directory and thereby rendering this attack almost completely impotent... unless the owner of the server has deliberately disabled it. Fortunately, nobody would ever just completely disable a security feature like that since that would obviously be - oh wait never mind.
4. Calling the sys_exec() function from lib_mysqludf_sys to run arbitrary shell commands
There's a MySQL extension called lib_mysqludf_sys that - judging from its stars on GitHub and a quick Stack Overflow search - has at least a few hundred users. It adds a function called sys_exec that runs shell commands. As noted in #2, functions can be called from within a SELECT; the implications are hopefully obvious. To quote from the source, this function "can be a security hazard".
In mitigation
Most systems don't have this extension installed.
If you say you use mysql_query that doesn't support multiple queries, you cannot directly add DELETE/UPDATE/INSERT, but it's possible to modify data under some circumstances. For example, let's say you have the following function
DELIMITER //
CREATE DEFINER=`root`#`localhost` FUNCTION `testP`()
RETURNS int(11)
LANGUAGE SQL
NOT DETERMINISTIC
MODIFIES SQL DATA
SQL SECURITY DEFINER
COMMENT ''
BEGIN
DELETE FROM test2;
return 1;
END //
Now you can call this function in SELECT :
SELECT id, name, message FROM messages WHERE id = NULL OR testP()
(id = NULL - always NULL(FALSE), so testP() always gets executed.
It depends on the DBMS connector you are using. Most of the time your scenario should not be possible, but under certain circumstances it could work. For further details you should take a look at chapter 4 and 5 from the Blackhat-Paper Advanced MySQL Exploitation.
Yes it's possible.
$_GET['q'] would hold 1; DELETE FROM users; --
SELECT id, name, message FROM messages WHERE id = 1; DELETE FROM users; -- whatever here');