A developer requested erroneously,sysadmin Server Role to create a SQL Server Linked Server. There is no requirement for sysadmin to create a SQL Server Linked Server .

Assigning  the permissions ,ALTER ANY LINKED SERVER and ALTER ANY LOGIN to a login account  , allows the actions to complete.

Create a Linked Server with master.dbo.sp_addlinkedserver.

ALTER ANY LINKED SERVER permissions are required

 Drop a Linked Server with master.dbo.sp_dropserver.
ALTER ANY LINKED SERVER permissions are required

Create the mapping of a local login with a remote server with master.dbo.sp_addlinkedsrvlogin

Code examples :

Assigning permissions

 USE master;

GRANT ALTER ANY LINKED SERVER TO MYLOGINACCT;

GO

USE master;

GRANT ALTER ANY LOGIN SERVER TO MYLOGINACCT;

 An example of adding a Linked Server

 EXEC sp_addlinkedserver  

   @server='Server1',

   @srvproduct='',

   @provider='SQLNCLI',

   @datasrc='Server1\instance1'

An example of dropping a Linked Server

 EXEC master.dbo.sp_dropserver ‘Server1’