Sql-server – Granting Execute Permissions on Stored Procedures, Functions and Views

This bit of nested dynamic SQL grants exec or select on all the various procedure and function types, that were not shipped by MS, and that exist in any database outside of master, msdb, tempdb and model. It is certainly not easy on the eyes, tedious to reverse engineer, and I haven't thoroughly tested it, but hopefully if you work through it you can figure out what I've done. ALl you really need to specify is the name of the login you want to grant the rights to - of course this assumes that the login has been mapped to a database user with the same name in each database. That was a layer of complexity I wasn't prepared to add, sorry. :-)

DECLARE 
  @principal SYSNAME = N'some_server_principal';


DECLARE 
  @sql1 NVARCHAR(MAX) = N'', 
  @sql2 NVARCHAR(MAX) = N'',
  @sql3 NVARCHAR(MAX) = N'';

SELECT @sql1 += N'
SELECT @sql += N''SELECT @sql += N''''
USE ' + QUOTENAME(name) + ';
GRANT '''' 
  + CASE WHEN type IN (''''P'''',''''PC'''') THEN ''''EXEC'''' ELSE ''''SELECT'''' END 
  + '''' ON '''' + QUOTENAME(SCHEMA_NAME(schema_id)) + ''''.'''' + QUOTENAME(name) 
  + '''' TO ' + QUOTENAME(@principal) + ';'''' FROM ' + QUOTENAME(name) + '.sys.objects
  WHERE is_ms_shipped = 0 AND type IN (''''P'''',''''PC'''',
    ''''FN'''',''''AF'''',''''FN'''',''''TF'''',''''IF'''');'';'
  FROM sys.databases
  WHERE database_id > 4;

EXEC sp_executesql @sql1, N'@sql NVARCHAR(MAX) OUTPUT', @sql = @sql2 OUTPUT;

EXEC sp_executesql @sql2, N'@sql NVARCHAR(MAX) OUTPUT', @sql = @sql3 OUTPUT;

-- you won't be able to validate all of this, since Management Studio will
-- truncate the output quietly. But you should get a good sense of what the
-- end result will be:

SELECT @sql3;

-- When you are happy with the above, uncomment this:

-- EXEC sp_executesql @sql3;

This is kind of like Inception. In order to generate the right output, you have to figure out which layer every element is on. This is why the initial string is so ugly, and littered with escaped apostrophes in sets of 2 and 4. It can be a little unnerving at first, but you can become adept very quickly at writing dynamic SQL for metadata purposes.

I've done this a couple of weeks ago - Created LOGIN, ROLE and USER. Added USER to ROLE and granted explicit permissions to the ROLE itself. The advantage in my opinion is, that you can add further users later on without the struggle to grant the permissions, again.

First I created the login:

IF NOT EXISTS 
( 
  SELECT 
    "name" 
  FROM 
    "master"."dbo"."syslogins" 
  WHERE 
    "name" = 'your_login'
)
BEGIN 
  CREATE LOGIN your_login WITH PASSWORD = 'your_password', CHECK_POLICY = OFF; 
END

I've added the CHECK_POLICY param because things are created on user interaction and I'm not able to see, if policies are activated server-sided.

Followed by the user:

IF NOT EXISTS 
( 
  SELECT 
    1 
  FROM 
    "sys"."database_principals" 
  WHERE 
    "name" = N'your_username'
)
BEGIN 
  CREATE USER your_username FOR LOGIN your_login;
END

And the role third:

IF NOT EXISTS 
( 
  SELECT 
    1 
  FROM 
    "sys"."database_principals" 
  WHERE
    "name" = N'your_role_name'  
)
BEGIN
  CREATE ROLE "your_role_name"; 
END

Finally I added the user to the created role:

EXECUTE sp_addrolemember N'your_role_name', N'your_username';

After that, permissions can be set for each type of object, eg

GRANT EXECUTE ON "dbo"."your_sproc" TO your_role_name;

You don't have to add denydatareader or else, if you explicitly grant permissions to the specific objects. Beware that an for example INSERT permission doesn't include the SELECT permission on the same object. ( at least in my case it didn't ;) )

If you have problems executing or selecting from your UDF, check if you have granted all permissions on the referenced objects in the UDF itself!

Update after Cobus' update in OP:

I've executed the queries you provided based on my initial answer, results following:

select * from dbo.testtable 

-- The SELECT permission was denied on the object 'testtable', database 'xyz', schema 'dbo'.

update dbo.testtable set id = 4 where id = 2

-- The SELECT permission was denied on the object 'testtable', database 'xyz', schema 'dbo'. -- The UPDATE permission was denied on the object 'testtable', database 'xyz', schema 'dbo'.

update dbo.testtable set id = 4

-- The INSERT permission was denied on the object 'testtable', database 'xyz', schema 'dbo'.

insert into dbo.testtable (id) values (5)

-- The INSERT permission was denied on the object 'testtable', database 'xyz', schema 'dbo'.

It behaves as intended. Do you have any further permissions granted / set or properties which allow you to access dbo-schema?