Server configuration: remote proc trans

Applies to: SQL Server

This article describes how to configure the remote proc trans server configuration option in SQL Server by using SQL Server Management Studio or Transact-SQL. The remote proc trans option helps protect the actions of a server-to-server procedure through a Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MS DTC) transaction.

Set the value of remote proc trans to 1 to provide an MS DTC-coordinated distributed transaction that protects the ACID (atomic, consistent, isolated, and durable) properties of transactions. Sessions begun after setting this option to 1 inherit the configuration setting as their default.

Important

This feature will be removed in a future version of SQL Server. Avoid using this feature in new development work, and plan to modify applications that currently use this feature.

Prerequisites

Remote server connections must be allowed before this value can be set.

Recommendations

This option is provided for compatibility with earlier versions of Microsoft SQL Server for applications that use remote stored procedures. Instead of issuing remote stored procedure calls, use distributed queries that reference linked servers, which are defined by using sp_addlinkedserver.

Permissions

Execute permissions on sp_configure with no parameters or with only the first parameter are granted to all users by default. To execute sp_configure with both parameters to change a configuration option or to run the RECONFIGURE statement, a user must be granted the ALTER SETTINGS server-level permission. The ALTER SETTINGS permission is implicitly held by the sysadmin and serveradmin fixed server roles.

Use SQL Server Management Studio

  1. In Object Explorer, right-click a server and select Properties.

  2. Select the Connections node.

  3. Under Remote server connections, select the Require Distributed Transactions for server to server communication check box.

Use Transact-SQL

  1. Connect to the Database Engine.

  2. From the Standard bar, select New Query.

  3. Copy and paste the following example into the query window and select Execute. This example shows how to use sp_configure to set the value of the remote proc trans option to 1.

    USE master;
    GO
    
    EXECUTE sp_configure 'remote proc trans', 1;
    GO
    
    RECONFIGURE;
    GO
    

For more information, see Server configuration options.

Follow up: After you configure the remote proc trans option

The setting takes effect immediately without restarting the server.