Event 324 from SQLAgent OpenCluster (reason: 5).

Problem

Overzealous monitoring alerts you to an error logged during a cluster failover, more specifically Event ID 324 from SQLAgent$InstanceName:

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Analysis

As mentioned this happens during failover, one that otherwise may pass without incident. Further analysis of the Application log shows that recovery isn’t done at the time. The next messages in the log are related to the server starting up and running recovery on the new node. For some reason this takes longer than expected. Maybe there was a lot of transactions in flight at the time of failover, maybe the server or storage is to slow, or maybe you were in the process of installing an update to SQLServer which may lead to extensive recovery times. Or it may be something completely different. Whatever it was, it caused the cluster service to try to start the SQLAgent before the node was ready. Reason 5 is probably access denied. Thus, the issue could be related to lack of permissions. I have yet to catch one of these early enough to have a cluster debug log containing the time of the error. Analysis of the cluster in question revealed another access related error at about the same time, ESENT Event ID 490:

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This error is related to lack of permissions for the SQLServer engine and Agent runas accounts. Whether or not these accounts should have Local Admin permissions on the node is a never ending discussion. I have found though, that granting the permissions causes far less trouble in a clustered environment than not doing so. There is always another issue, always another patch or feature requiring yet another explicit permission. From a security stand point, it is easy to argue that the data served by the SQL Server is far more valuable than the local server it runs on. If an attacker is able to gain access to the runas accounts, he already has access to read and change/delete the data. What happens to the local server after that is to me rather irrelevant. But security regulations aren’t guaranteed to be neither logical nor sane.

Solution/Workaround

To solve the permission issue, you can either:

  • Add the necessary local permissions for the runas accounts as discussed in KB2811566 and wait for the next “feature” requiring you to add even more permissions to something else. Also, make sure the Agent account has the proper permissions to your backup folders and make sure you are able to create new databases. Not being able to do so may be caused by the engine account not having the proper permissions to your data/log folders.
  • Add the SQL Server Engine and Agent runas accounts to the local administrators group on the server.

Do NOT grant the runas accounts Domain Admin permissions. Ever.

Regarding the open cluster error:

On the servers I have analyzed with this issue, the log always shows the agent starting successfully within two minutes of the error, and it only happens during failover. I have yet to find it on servers where the permissions issue is not solved (using either method), but I am not 100% sure that they are related. I can however say that the message can safely be ignored as long as the Agent account is able to start successfully after the message.

Author: DizzyBadger

SQL Server DBA, Cluster expert, Principal Analyst

One thought on “Event 324 from SQLAgent OpenCluster (reason: 5).”

  1. ight-click your cluster in the gui and select properties

    select the “cluster permissions” tab

    add the sqlagent service account and assign full permission

    restart the agent

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