SQL Server Password Expiration Policy: Learn How to Enforce, Disable & Manage SQL Passwords

An expired SQL Server password can lock the users and database administrators out of critical databases. This often is a nightmare for the database administrators who aren’t aware of SQL Server password expiration policy. This technical guide will walk you through SQL Server check expiration date, challenges after password, and how to recover the password effectively.

Let’s begin by understanding what the SQL password expiration policy is and why database administrators often prefer using dedicated tools, like SysTools SQL Password Recovery Tool, to overcome issues like SQL Server password expiration. 

Understanding Password Expiration Policy SQL Server

It is a security mechanism in SQL Server that forces SQL login passwords to expire after a specified period. Simplifying the definition, database administrators often choose SQL Server to enforce password expiration, so they tend to keep their database protected and safe from password-related security issues. Below are the options where the SQL Server password expiration policy is available:

• SQL Server Authentication Logins
• The Windows systems that support password policies
• The logins were created with the password policy enabled.

These are some of the factors where it is possible to implement a password expiration policy. Let’s now understand the challenges encountered due to an expired password in SQL Server. 

How Expired Password Affect SQL Server? Learning the Challenges

For both authentication modes, SQL Server authentication and Windows authentication logic, an expired password creates several issues. We will discuss them one by one, depending on the authentication modes, and further understand how to overcome them. 

SQL Password Expiration in SQL Server Authentication Mode

Here are the challenges encountered due to an expired password:

• Failed Connections: With the expired password in SQL Server, all incoming connection requests will be rejected while displaying a SQL Server error. The error message displayed is ‘Login Failed for user ‘loginname’. Reason: The password of the account has expired.’
• Prolonged Application Downtime: The applications and servers connected with the SQL Server engine or database lose connectivity, resulting in prolonged application downtime. 
• Broken SQL Agent Jobs: In case the login with the expired password is set explicitly as the owner for SQL Server Agent Jobs, these background processes might fail to execute due to a password issue. 
• Active Connections Remain Active: Another challenge is that the connections that were already established usually remain active till they are forcefully dropped or timed out by the application server. 

Expired Password in Windows Authentication Mode

• Database Engine Stops Working: When the SQL Server password expires, SQL Server services are restarted, and due to the expired password, these services might fail.
• Critical Operating System Error: Due to an expired SQL password in Windows Authentication mode, critical database errors, such as SQL Server Error 1069, may occur.
• Complete SQL Server Outage: In extreme cases, the complete SQL Server instance goes offline, resulting in making all the hosted databases inaccessible to everyone. 

These are some of the challenges and issues encountered due to SQL Server password expiration. To overcome these challenges, it becomes crucial for the database administrators to know about SQL password expiration policy and how to enforce or disable the security mechanism for a safer and more secure server login and accessibility. 

We will now move to the solutions that will help DBAs resolve the issue and further to prevent such errors in the future. 

How to Check & Resolve Password Expired Issue in SQL Server?

To fix the SQL Password issue, we will first learn how to check the password expiration policy status in SQL Server. The command given below will help with this process:

SELECT
   name,
   is_expiration_checked,
   is_policy_checked
FROM sys.sql_logins;

This code will allow users to check whether SQL Server Password Expiration policy is enabled or not. To get a clearer idea, let’s check the possible outcomes of this code:

is_expiration_checked = 1: Password Expiration is Enabled
is_expiration_checked = 0: Password Expiration is Disabled
is_policy_checked = 1: Password Policy is Enabled 

We will now take a look at how to enable or disable the password expiration depending on the requirements of the database administrator. 

SQL Server Enforce Password Expiration Steps

Here is the code that will help users enforce the password expiration.

ALTER LOGIN User
WITH CHECK_POLICY = ON,
CHECK_EXPIRATION = ON;

This command will enable the Windows password policy and the password expiration tracking in SQL Server. Now, after setting up the expiration policy, the next crucial step is to force users to change their passwords at the time of their next login. The command mentioned below will help with that process. 

ALTER LOGIN User
WITH PASSWORD = “TempPassword@123” MUST_CHANGE;

This command helps with resetting user passwords, creating new user accounts, or responding to security and safety incidents in the SQL Server environment. However, forcing users to change passwords after certain periods can lead to issues like forgotten passwords or lost passwords because they are not properly documented in most cases with regular password changes. Therefore, users often get locked out of their databases due to the SQL Password expiration policy. 

For such cases, experts and product managers often trust a specialized SQL Password Recovery Tool that allows users to recover lost or forgotten SQL password with complete efficiency. Let’s see how this solution can help users retrieve passwords from the database. 

Steps to Recover Password Lost Due to SQL Password Expiration

1. Install and run this advanced tool. Browse and add the .mdf file of the specified database.
2. Then the tool will scan the file, and display all the login names on the screen.
3. Next, select the user whose password needs to be reset and click on the Reset Password Button.
4. Set the new password for the user login and click on the OK button to proceed with the process.

These easy steps will allow users to recover SQL passwords in case they lose or forget them. Now, after resolving this issue, we will take a look at how to disable SQL Server password expiration policy. 

Steps for SQL Server Disable Password Expiration

The command given below will help DBAs to disable password expiration.

ALTER LOGIN User
WITH CHECK_EXPIRATION = OFF;

Now, to disable both Expiration and Policy, use the given command:

ALTER LOGIN User
WITH CHECK_POLICY = OFF;

Conclusion

With the help of this guide, we have discussed SQL Server password expiration policy. We have also learned how it can affect users and database logins. To better understand, we have explained the common challenges encountered by users. The steps to enforce and disable the SQL password expiration policy are also present in this technical guide. In case users lose their database login passwords, we have also suggested a dedicated solution to help users recover forgotten passwords in the database.