Sharing certificates encryped by password between DBs and instances

**Question:** I am trying to create a single (self signed) certificate and deploy across many databases and instances. I create and backup the cert with: USE MASTER CREATE CERTIFICATE DavesCert ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD ='S3creT!' WITH SUBJECT = 'The master cert' BACKUP CERTIFICATE DavesCert TO FILE = 'd:\DavesCert.cer' WITH PRIVATE KEY ( DECRYPTION BY PASSWORD = 'S3creT!' , FILE = 'd:\DavesCert.pvk' , ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD = 'S3creT!' ); I restore with USE FOO GO CREATE CERTIFICATE ERecruitStatsGatheringCert FROM FILE = 'd:\DavesCert.cer' WITH PRIVATE KEY (FILE = 'd:\DavesCert.pvk', DECRYPTION BY PASSWORD = 'S3creT!') and get the following error: "Please create a master key in the database or open the master key in the session before performing this operation." I don't want to create a database master key. I'm happy to decrypt the cert by password as needed. **Background:** SaaS application. Many to Many relationship between DB's and instances. I need each DB to be able to query it's own stats by executing a stored procedure that wraps up some calls to DMV's to return the stats. App runs under a low-privileged account. DMV's require VIEW SERVER STATE permission, therefore, I'm implementing signing of the stored procedures using certs. Basic way of setting this up is to: 1. Create a cert in the user DB. 2. Backup/restore that cert to master. 3. Create login in master, assigned that permissions, etc. 4. Add Certificate to stored procedure. I have test code for the above and it works well, however the model does not scale very well for deployment across multiple instances/dbs. Therefore, I _think_ I want to use the same cert across all DB's/instances. Happy for other suggestions/approaches. --Originally posted to Stack Exchange then moved on suggestion from another use