ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION (Transact-SQL)

**APPLIES TO:** ![yes](media/yes.png)SQL Server (starting with 2008) ![no](media/no.png)Azure SQL Database ![no](media/no.png)Azure SQL Data Warehouse ![no](media/no.png)Parallel Data Warehouse

Alters a server audit specification object using the SQL Server Audit feature. For more information, see SQL Server Audit (Database Engine).

Topic link icon Transact-SQL Syntax Conventions

Syntax

ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION audit_specification_name  
{  
    [ FOR SERVER AUDIT audit_name ]  
    [ { { ADD | DROP } ( audit_action_group_name )  
      } [, ...n] ]  
    [ WITH ( STATE = { ON | OFF } ) ]  
}  
[ ; ]

Arguments

audit_specification_name
The name of the audit specification.

audit_name
The name of the audit to which this specification is applied.

audit_action_group_name
Name of a group of server-level auditable actions. For a list of Audit Action Groups, see SQL Server Audit Action Groups and Actions.

WITH ( STATE = { ON | OFF } )
Enables or disables the audit from collecting records for this audit specification.

Remarks

You must set the state of an audit specification to the OFF option to make changes to an audit specification. If ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION is executed when an audit specification is enabled with any options other than STATE=OFF, you will receive an error message.

Permissions

Users with the ALTER ANY SERVER AUDIT permission can alter server audit specifications and bind them to any audit.

After a server audit specification is created, it can be viewed by principals with the CONTROL SERVER, or ALTER ANY SERVER AUDIT permissions, the sysadmin account, or principals having explicit access to the audit.

Examples

The following example creates a server audit specification called HIPPA_Audit_Specification. It drops the audit action group for failed logins, and adds an audit action group for Database Object Access for a SQL Server audit called HIPPA_Audit.

ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION HIPPA_Audit_Specification  
FOR SERVER AUDIT HIPPA_Audit  
    DROP (FAILED_LOGIN_GROUP)  
    ADD (DATABASE_OBJECT_ACCESS_GROUP);  
GO