patternsqlModerate

From the DMVs, can you tell if a connection used ApplicationIntent=ReadOnly?

Submitted by: @import:stackexchange-dba·Mar 10, 2026·

Viewed 0 times

cantheyoureadonlyusedtelldmvsapplicationintentfromconnection

Problem

I have an Always On Availability Group set up, and I want to make sure my users are using ApplicationIntent=ReadOnly in their connection strings.

From the SQL Server via DMVs (or Extended Events or whatever), can I tell if a user connected with ApplicationIntent=ReadOnly in their connection string?

Please don't answer with how to PREVENT connections - that's not what this question is about. I can't simply go stopping connections, because we have existing applications that are connecting without the right string, and I need to know which ones they are so I can work with the developers and users to get it fixed gradually over time.

Assume that users have multiple applications. For example, Bob connects with SQL Server Management Studio, and with Excel. He connects with SSMS when he needs to do updates, and Excel when he needs to do reads. I need to make sure he's using ApplicationIntent=ReadOnly when he connects with Excel. (That's not the exact scenario, but it's close enough to illustrate.)

Solution

Picking up on the sqlserver.read_only_route_complete Extended Event mentioned by Kin and Remus, it's a nice Debug event, but it doesn't carry a great deal of information with it - just route_port (eg 1433) and route_server_name (eg sqlserver-0.contoso.com) by default. This would also only help determine when a read-only intent connection was successful. There is a read_only_route_fail event but I couldn't get it to fire, maybe if there was a problem with the routing URL, it didn't seem to fire when the secondary instance was unavailable / shutdown as far as I could tell.

I have however had some success joining that up with the sqlserver.login event and causality tracking enabled, along with some actions (like sqlserver.username ) to make it useful.

Steps to Reproduce

Create an Extended Events session to track relevant events, plus useful actions and track causality:

CREATE EVENT SESSION [xe_watchLoginIntent] ON SERVER 
ADD EVENT sqlserver.login
    ( ACTION ( sqlserver.username ) ),
ADD EVENT sqlserver.read_only_route_complete
    ( ACTION ( 
        sqlserver.client_app_name,
        sqlserver.client_connection_id,
        sqlserver.client_hostname,
        sqlserver.client_pid,
        sqlserver.context_info,
        sqlserver.database_id,
        sqlserver.database_name,
        sqlserver.username 
        ) ),
ADD EVENT sqlserver.read_only_route_fail
    ( ACTION ( 
        sqlserver.client_app_name,
        sqlserver.client_connection_id,
        sqlserver.client_hostname,
        sqlserver.client_pid,
        sqlserver.context_info,
        sqlserver.database_id,
        sqlserver.database_name,
        sqlserver.username 
        ) )
ADD TARGET package0.event_file( SET filename = N'xe_watchLoginIntent' )
WITH ( 
    MAX_MEMORY = 4096 KB, 
    EVENT_RETENTION_MODE = ALLOW_SINGLE_EVENT_LOSS, 
    MAX_DISPATCH_LATENCY = 30 SECONDS,
    MAX_EVENT_SIZE = 0 KB, 
    MEMORY_PARTITION_MODE = NONE, 
    TRACK_CAUSALITY = ON,   --<-- relate events
    STARTUP_STATE = ON      --<-- ensure sessions starts after failover
)

Run the XE session (consider sampling as this is a Debug event), and collect some logins:

Note here sqlserver-0 is my readable secondary and sqlserver-1 the primary. Here I'm using the -K switch of sqlcmd to simulate read-only application intent logins and some SQL logins. The readonly event fires on a successful read-only intent login.

On pausing or stopping the session I can query it and attempt to link up the two events, eg:

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS #tmp

SELECT IDENTITY( INT, 1, 1 ) rowId, file_offset, CAST( event_data AS XML ) AS event_data
INTO #tmp
FROM sys.fn_xe_file_target_read_file( 'xe_watchLoginIntent*.xel', NULL, NULL, NULL )

ALTER TABLE #tmp ADD PRIMARY KEY ( rowId );
CREATE PRIMARY XML INDEX _pxmlidx_tmp ON #tmp ( event_data );

-- Pair up the login and read_only_route_complete events via xxx
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS #users

SELECT
    rowId,
    event_data.value('(event/@timestamp)[1]', 'DATETIME2' ) AS [timestamp],
    event_data.value('(event/action[@name="username"]/value/text())[1]', 'VARCHAR(100)' ) AS username,
    event_data.value('(event/action[@name="attach_activity_id_xfer"]/value/text())[1]', 'VARCHAR(100)' ) AS attach_activity_id_xfer,
    event_data.value('(event/action[@name="attach_activity_id"]/value/text())[1]', 'VARCHAR(100)' ) AS attach_activity_id
INTO #users
FROM #tmp l
WHERE l.event_data.exist('event[@name="login"]') = 1
  AND l.event_data.exist('(event/action[@name="username"]/value/text())[. = "SqlUserShouldBeReadOnly"]') = 1

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS #readonly

SELECT *,
    event_data.value('(event/@timestamp)[1]', 'DATETIME2' ) AS [timestamp],
    event_data.value('(event/data[@name="route_port"]/value/text())[1]', 'INT' ) AS route_port,
    event_data.value('(event/data[@name="route_server_name"]/value/text())[1]', 'VARCHAR(100)' ) AS route_server_name,
    event_data.value('(event/action[@name="username"]/value/text())[1]', 'VARCHAR(100)' ) AS username,
    event_data.value('(event/action[@name="client_app_name"]/value/text())[1]', 'VARCHAR(100)' ) AS client_app_name,
    event_data.value('(event/action[@name="attach_activity_id_xfer"]/value/text())[1]', 'VARCHAR(100)' ) AS attach_activity_id_xfer,
    event_data.value('(event/action[@name="attach_activity_id"]/value/text())[1]', 'VARCHAR(100)' ) AS attach_activity_id
INTO #readonly
FROM #tmp
WHERE event_data.exist('event[@name="read_only_route_complete"]') = 1

SELECT *
FROM #users u
    LEFT JOIN #readonly r ON u.attach_activity_id_xfer = r.attach_activity_id_xfer

SELECT u.username, COUNT(*) AS logins, COUNT( DISTINCT r.rowId ) AS records
FROM #users u
    LEFT JOIN #readonly r ON u.attach_activity_id_xfer = r.attach_activity_id_xfer
GROUP BY u.username

The query should show the logins with and without application read-only intent:

read_only_route_complete is a Debug event so use sparingly. Consider sampling for example.

the two events together with track

Code Snippets

CREATE EVENT SESSION [xe_watchLoginIntent] ON SERVER 
ADD EVENT sqlserver.login
    ( ACTION ( sqlserver.username ) ),
ADD EVENT sqlserver.read_only_route_complete
    ( ACTION ( 
        sqlserver.client_app_name,
        sqlserver.client_connection_id,
        sqlserver.client_hostname,
        sqlserver.client_pid,
        sqlserver.context_info,
        sqlserver.database_id,
        sqlserver.database_name,
        sqlserver.username 
        ) ),
ADD EVENT sqlserver.read_only_route_fail
    ( ACTION ( 
        sqlserver.client_app_name,
        sqlserver.client_connection_id,
        sqlserver.client_hostname,
        sqlserver.client_pid,
        sqlserver.context_info,
        sqlserver.database_id,
        sqlserver.database_name,
        sqlserver.username 
        ) )
ADD TARGET package0.event_file( SET filename = N'xe_watchLoginIntent' )
WITH ( 
    MAX_MEMORY = 4096 KB, 
    EVENT_RETENTION_MODE = ALLOW_SINGLE_EVENT_LOSS, 
    MAX_DISPATCH_LATENCY = 30 SECONDS,
    MAX_EVENT_SIZE = 0 KB, 
    MEMORY_PARTITION_MODE = NONE, 
    TRACK_CAUSALITY = ON,   --<-- relate events
    STARTUP_STATE = ON      --<-- ensure sessions starts after failover
)

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS #tmp

SELECT IDENTITY( INT, 1, 1 ) rowId, file_offset, CAST( event_data AS XML ) AS event_data
INTO #tmp
FROM sys.fn_xe_file_target_read_file( 'xe_watchLoginIntent*.xel', NULL, NULL, NULL )

ALTER TABLE #tmp ADD PRIMARY KEY ( rowId );
CREATE PRIMARY XML INDEX _pxmlidx_tmp ON #tmp ( event_data );


-- Pair up the login and read_only_route_complete events via xxx
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS #users

SELECT
    rowId,
    event_data.value('(event/@timestamp)[1]', 'DATETIME2' ) AS [timestamp],
    event_data.value('(event/action[@name="username"]/value/text())[1]', 'VARCHAR(100)' ) AS username,
    event_data.value('(event/action[@name="attach_activity_id_xfer"]/value/text())[1]', 'VARCHAR(100)' ) AS attach_activity_id_xfer,
    event_data.value('(event/action[@name="attach_activity_id"]/value/text())[1]', 'VARCHAR(100)' ) AS attach_activity_id
INTO #users
FROM #tmp l
WHERE l.event_data.exist('event[@name="login"]') = 1
  AND l.event_data.exist('(event/action[@name="username"]/value/text())[. = "SqlUserShouldBeReadOnly"]') = 1


DROP TABLE IF EXISTS #readonly

SELECT *,
    event_data.value('(event/@timestamp)[1]', 'DATETIME2' ) AS [timestamp],
    event_data.value('(event/data[@name="route_port"]/value/text())[1]', 'INT' ) AS route_port,
    event_data.value('(event/data[@name="route_server_name"]/value/text())[1]', 'VARCHAR(100)' ) AS route_server_name,
    event_data.value('(event/action[@name="username"]/value/text())[1]', 'VARCHAR(100)' ) AS username,
    event_data.value('(event/action[@name="client_app_name"]/value/text())[1]', 'VARCHAR(100)' ) AS client_app_name,
    event_data.value('(event/action[@name="attach_activity_id_xfer"]/value/text())[1]', 'VARCHAR(100)' ) AS attach_activity_id_xfer,
    event_data.value('(event/action[@name="attach_activity_id"]/value/text())[1]', 'VARCHAR(100)' ) AS attach_activity_id
INTO #readonly
FROM #tmp
WHERE event_data.exist('event[@name="read_only_route_complete"]') = 1


SELECT *
FROM #users u
    LEFT JOIN #readonly r ON u.attach_activity_id_xfer = r.attach_activity_id_xfer

SELECT u.username, COUNT(*) AS logins, COUNT( DISTINCT r.rowId ) AS records
FROM #users u
    LEFT JOIN #readonly r ON u.attach_activity_id_xfer = r.attach_activity_id_xfer
GROUP BY u.username

ALTER EVENT SESSION [xe_watchLoginIntent] ON SERVER
ADD TARGET package0.pair_matching ( 
    SET begin_event = N'sqlserver.login',
        begin_matching_actions = N'sqlserver.username',
        end_event = N'sqlserver.read_only_route_complete',
        end_matching_actions = N'sqlserver.username'
    )

Context

StackExchange Database Administrators Q#142086, answer score: 11

Revisions (0)

No revisions yet.