Control: 6.3.3 Ensure 'user connections' database flag for Cloud SQL SQL Server instance is set as appropriate

Description

It is recommended to set user connections database flag for Cloud SQL SQL Server instance according organization-defined value.

The user connections option specifies the maximum number of simultaneous user connections that are allowed on an instance of SQL Server. The actual number of user connections allowed also depends on the version of SQL Server that you are using, and also the limits of your application or applications and hardware. SQL Server allows a maximum of 32,767 user connections. Because user connections is by default a self- configuring value, with SQL Server adjusting the maximum number of user connections automatically as needed, up to the maximum value allowable. For example, if only 10 users are logged in, 10 user connection objects are allocated. In most cases, you do not have to change the value for this option. The default is 0, which means that the maximum (32,767) user connections are allowed. However if there is a number defined here that limits connections, SQL Server will not allow anymore above this limit. If the connections are at the limit, any new requests will be dropped potentially causing lost data or outages for those using the database.

Remediation

From Console

1. Go to the Cloud SQL Instances page in the Google Cloud Console by visiting https://console.cloud.google.com/sql/instances.
2. Select the SQL Server instance for which you want to enable to database flag.
3. Click Edit.
4. Scroll down to the Flags section.
5. To set a flag that has not been set on the instance before, click Add item, choose the flag user connections from the drop-down menu, and set its value to your organization recommended value.
6. Click Save to save your changes.
7. Confirm your changes under Flags on the Overview page.

Note: Any changes to the database flag values, may require your instance to be restarted

From Command Line

1. Configure the user connections database flag for every Cloud SQL SQL Server database instance using the below command.

gcloud sql instances patch INSTANCE_NAME --database-flags "user connections=[0-32,767]"

Note: This command will overwrite all database flags previously set. To keep those and add new ones, include the values for all flags you want set on the instance; any flag not specifically included is set to its default value. For flags that do not take a value, specify the flag name followed by an equals sign ("=").

Default Value

By default user connections is set to '0' which does not limit the number of connections, giving the server free reign to facilitate a max of 32,767 connections.