Permissions for use of the system tables can be controlled by the database owner, just like permissions on any other tables. When a database is created, select permission on some system tables is granted to public, and select permission on some system tables is restricted to administrators. For some other tables, a few columns have restricted select permissions for public.
To determine the current permissions for a particular system table, execute:
sp_helprotect system_table_name
For example, to check the permissions of syssrvroles in the master database, execute:
use master go sp_helprotect syssrvroles go
The default situation is that no users—including database owners—can modify the system tables directly. Instead, the T-SQL commands and the system procedures supplied with Adaptive Server modify the system tables. This helps guarantee integrity.
WARNING! Although Adaptive Server provides a mechanism that allows you to modify system tables, Sybase strongly recommends that you do not do so.
