master Overview

Overview

The fifteen pages under the Master node each answer one question thoroughly. This one answers the question before those, which is which of them is worth opening today.

Every row names a page, says what that page will find, and opens it on a double click or from the menu.

The master Overview page: the fifteen master pages ranked by what each one found
The whole page. The header counts master, the databases and the logins, the bars rank the pages by what each one found on this instance, and the grid says what each one will open.

Where to find it

Expand a server in the tree, expand the master database, then click Master.

The Master group is shown for the database named master on a box product instance. It is hidden on Azure SQL Database, where naming several of these catalog views is a compile time failure that takes the whole batch with it rather than one statement, which no TRY around the query catches.

The fifteen child nodes are listed alphabetically by the text shown, because keys, files, endpoints and startup procedures are unrelated subjects and somebody looking for one of them is looking for its name.

The counts are deliberately cheap

Each one is a COUNT over a catalog view, so the whole page is one small trip.

None of them is a substitute for the page it points at. Eleven credentials is a fact; whether any of them is unused is a question only the master Credentials page answers.

Three trips rather than one

That split is the point of the page rather than an accident:

Trip Why it is separate
The catalog counts Work for any login that can see the catalog at all.
The two DMV counts A DMV refuses a login without VIEW SERVER STATE with an error rather than returning nothing, and one refusal in a shared batch would take every count with it.
The last backup of master From msdb, because a login that can read master and cannot read msdb is ordinary rather than exceptional.

A trip that fails costs its own answers and says so in the row that needed them, rather than emptying the page.

Reading the chart

The master Overview bars: one per page, the ones with something to say first
Four amber bars at the top, and the label on the right is the finding in a few words. The green bars at the bottom are the pages that will say there is nothing to act on.

One bar per page, the ones with something to say first. The color carries the same ranking the header line counts: amber for the pages worth opening today, blue for the ones with something in them, green for the pages whose answer is that there is nothing to act on.

The bars draw the top thirteen of the fifteen. The grid holds them all.

Reading the grid

The master Overview grid: one row per page in the suite
Report, what is there, why you would open it, and what it opens. The rows with a sentence in the Worth a look column are the amber bars above.
Column What it is
Report The page in the master suite.
What is there The count on this instance.
Worth a look Why you would open it, or a note when the count itself is the finding.
Opens Double-click, or use the right-click menu.

The toolbar

Control What it does
Backup and rebuild Opens master Backup and Rebuild Readiness.
User objects Opens master User Objects.
Change ledger Opens master Change Ledger.

The fifteen pages

Page What it answers
Backup and Rebuild Whether the master backup is newer than the things it would have to restore.
Change Ledger What has changed at server level, in one list, in order.
Credentials Which outside identities this instance holds, and what uses each one.
Database Properties Which databases are set up differently from all the others.
Endpoints What can connect to this instance, over what, and who may use it.
File Map Every file of every database, including the ones nobody can open.
Footprint How big master is, where it lives, and whether that size is normal.
Keys and Certificates What master is protecting, and whether any of it has ever been backed up.
Resource Governor Whether anything is being capped, and whether what runs is what somebody wrote.
Server Audits Whether auditing is on, whether it is writing, and what happens if it cannot.
Server Permissions Who holds server rights no fixed role gave them.
Server Triggers Code that runs on every login or every DDL statement.
Service Facts What account this instance runs as, how it starts, and whether it has crashed.
Startup Procedures What runs before anybody connects, and the service command line.
User Objects What somebody installed in master, and what a rebuild would lose.
Report Why you would go there
Database Overview The ordinary overview shown for a user database.
msdb Space and Retention The same question for the other system database that holds people’s data.
Security Posture The instance level security summary these pages feed.

Frequently asked questions

A row says the count could not be read. That row needed a DMV or needed msdb, and this login could not reach it. The other rows are unaffected, which is why the page makes three trips rather than one.

Why does the Master node not appear on my Azure database? Because most of what these pages read does not exist there. Naming those views would fail the whole batch at compile time, so the node is hidden rather than the error handled.

Are the counts live? They are read when the page opens. Use the toolbar refresh for a new read.