I'm working on a new SQL Server instance, but the SSMS options to start/stop/restart the SQL Agent are grayed out.
I am connected from another PC. My user is in a group that has sysadmin permissions and is in the server's Administrators group. I thought that would be enough.
What permission is needed to get this option?
What permission is needed to get this option?
You need all Windows level permissions (high level):
If you're attempting this from a remote machine, you'll also need the appropriate firewall rules for remote WMI.
Obviously being a local admin on the server will, by default if there are no previously included denies to your account, work as denoted by Doug's answer.
Regardless of being remote or not, the entire process is completed through WMI calls. Note that there can be a difference in WMI namespace usage depending on the instance being clustered or not.
To check remote WMI connectivity, see the documentation:
Example WMI call to get the agent service
GroupOperationId = 20145; Operation = Provider::GetObject - CIMWin32 : Win32_Service.Name="SQLSERVERAGENT"; HostID = 4316; ProviderName = CIMWin32; ProviderGuid = {d63a5850-8f16-11cf-9f47-00aa00bf345c}; Path = %systemroot%\system32\wbem\cimwin32.dll
Example of stopping the agent service
GroupOperationId = 20145; OperationId = 20144; ClassName= Win32_Service; MethodName = StopService; ImplementationClass = Win32_BaseService; ClientMachine = WIN-H5JAVS3QKT5; User = WIN-H5JAVS3QKT5\Administrator; ClientProcessId = 4184; NamespaceName = \.\root\cimv2
My user is in a group that has sysadmin permissions
It's not about sysadmin rights to the SQL instance. It's about Windows rights. The account you use to log in to SSMS and authenticate to the SQL instance needs to have admin rights on the Windows server that the SQL instance lives on.
See also: https://www.sqlservercentral.com/forums/topic/unable-to-startstop-sql-agent-remotely-through-ssms
