How to Install and Use MS SQL Server on Linux

In the year 2016, Microsoft surprised the IT world with the announcement of their plans to bring MS SQL Server to Linux.

Under Satya Nadella’s leadership, the Redmond giant has made significant progress towards taking advantage of the areas where Linux dominates the industry (such as the technologies that power the cloud). The move to make SQL Server available in Linux is yet another indicative of this approach.

Whatever the company’s motivations behind this initiative, Linux system administrators are likely to need to learn how to install, maintain, and use MS SQL Server – especially considering that the preview version packages are already available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3+ (includes CentOS 7.3+ as well) and Ubuntu Server 16.04 bits (sorry – no 32-bit version available!).

The only “fancy” system requirement of the preview version is that the system where it is installed must have at least 2 GB of RAM.

Installing MS SQL Server on Linux

In this quickstart article, we will explain how to install SQL Server 2019 preview on RHEL/CentOS 7.3+ releases and Ubuntu 16.04.

Installing MS SQL Server on RHEL/CentOS 7.3+

1. To install SQL Server on RHEL/CentOS 7.3+ releases, download the Microsoft SQL Server 2019 preview Red Hat repository configuration files, which will install the mssql-server package and mssql-tools using the following curl commands.

# curl -o /etc/yum.repos.d/mssql-server.repo https://packages.microsoft.com/config/rhel/7/mssql-server-preview.repo
# curl -o /etc/yum.repos.d/msprod.repo https://packages.microsoft.com/config/rhel/7/prod.repo

2. Then install the SQL Server and mssql-tools with the unixODBC developer package using yum package manager, as shown.

# yum install -y mssql-server mssql-tools unixODBC-devel

3. When the installation is complete, you will be reminded to run the configuration script (/opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf) to accept the license terms, set the password for the SA user, and choose your edition.

# /opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf setup

4. Once the configuration is done, verify that the SQL Server service is running.

# systemctl status mssql-server

5. Open port 1433/tcp on your firewall in order to allow external clients to communicate with the database server:

If you’re using firewalld:

# firewall-cmd --add-port=1433/tcp --permanent
# firewall-cmd --reload

Otherwise (using iptables):

# iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 1433 -j ACCEPT
# iptables-save > /etc/sysconfig/iptables

Installing MS SQL Server on Ubuntu 16.04

1. In order for Ubuntu to trust the packages from the MS SQL Server repositories, import the GPG keys using the following wget command.

$ wget -qO- https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | sudo apt-key add -

2. Add the Microsoft SQL Server Ubuntu repository for SQL Server 2019 preview.

$ sudo add-apt-repository "$(wget -qO- https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/16.04/mssql-server-preview.list)"
$ curl https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/16.04/prod.list | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/msprod.list

3. Resynchronize the package index files and update the core package and additional tools:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install mssql-server mssql-tools unixodbc-dev -y

4. Run the configuration script as in the previous case:

$ sudo /opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf setup
SQL Server Setup on Linux
SQL Server Setup on Linux

5. Choose “Yes” when prompted to accept the license terms for MS SQL Tools:

Configuring MSSQL Tools on Linux
Configuring MSSQL Tools on Linux

Testing MS SQL Server on Linux

We will login to the server and create a database named Fabrics. The -P switch must be followed by the password you chose when you installed the package previously:

$ sqlcmd -S localhost -U SA -P 'YourPasswordHere'
CREATE DATABASE Fabrics
exit
Create MSSQL Database on Linux
Create MSSQL Database on Linux

If you’re using Linux, you can continue using the command-line as shown above. Otherwise, install SQL Server Management Studio Express if you’re on Windows.

Once done, enter the IP of the database server (192.168.0.200 in this case) and the login credentials (username=sa, password=YourPasswordHere):

Connect to MSSQL Server
Connect to MSSQL Server

Upon successful login, the Fabrics database should appear at the left-hand side:

Confirm MSSQL Database
Confirm MSSQL Database

Next, click New Query to open a new query window where you’ll insert the contents of the Fabrics script from Codeproject.com, then click Execute.

If successful, you will see the script created 5 tables and the number of records in each:

Create a Sample SQL Database
Create a Sample SQL Database

To wrap up, run the following query to retrieve the first 5 records from the Clients table:

USE Fabrics
SELECT TOP 5 FirstName, LastName,
DateOfBirth FROM Client
GO

The results should be identical to the output in the following image:

Run MSSQL Database Queries on Linux
Run MSSQL Database Queries on Linux

Congratulations! You have successfully installed and tested MS SQL Server on Linux!

Summary

In this article, we have explained how to install MS SQL Server on RHEL / CentOS and Ubuntu Server.

Due to the newfound closeness of Microsoft and Linux, Linux system administrators will need to be knowledgeable on MS SQL Server if they want to stay at the top of their game.

By mid-2017, the same SQL Server editions will be offered on Linux as today on Windows: Enterprise, Standard, Web, Express, and Developer. The last two are free but only the Express edition will be licensed for production use (but with resource limits).

As always, feel free to use the comment form below to drop us a note if you have any questions. We look forward to hearing from you!

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Gabriel Cánepa
Gabriel Cánepa is a GNU/Linux sysadmin and web developer from Villa Mercedes, San Luis, Argentina. He works for a worldwide leading consumer product company and takes great pleasure in using FOSS tools to increase productivity in all areas of his daily work.

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44 thoughts on “How to Install and Use MS SQL Server on Linux”

  1. When I installed I chose the Developer Edition and Language English. After entering the Administrator password I got the error messages

    Configuring SQL Server…

    Error: The evaluation period has expired.
    This program has encountered a fatal error and cannot continue running on Thu Oct 7 11:12:52 2021

    The following diagnostic information is available:

    Reason: 0x00000003
    Status: 0x00000000
    Message: Unexpected call to legacy ABI.
    Stack:
    IP Function
    —————- ————————————–
    000055a99694eada std::__1::basic_string<char, std::__1::char_traits,
    std::__1::allocator > std::__1::operator+<char, std::__1::char_traits, std::__1::allocator
    >(std::__1::basic_string<char, std::__1::char_traits, std::__1::allocator > c
    000055a99694e5d9 std::__1::basic_string<char, std::__1::char_traits, std::__1
    ::allocator > std::__1::operator+<char, std::__1::char_traits, std::__1::allocator >
    (std::__1::basic_string<char, std::__1::char_traits, std::__1::allocator > c
    000055a9968969ae std::__1::basic_string<char, std::__1::char_traits,
    std::__1::allocator > std::__1::operator+<char, std::__1::char_traits, std::__1::allocator
    >(std::__1::basic_string<char, std::__1::char_traits, std::__1::allocator > c�y
    6_
    000055a9968f4717 std::__1::basic_string<char, std::__1::char_traits,
    std::__1::allocator > std::__1::operator+<char, std::__1::char_traits, std::__1::allocator
    >(std::__1::basic_string<char, std::__1::char_traits, std::__1::allocator > c
    Process: 13846 – sqlservr
    Thread: 13847
    Instance Id: 421eda95-6869-4038-8947-96dbb654717b
    Crash Id:
    Build stamp: 79eb721ef02d0426160fe0ad320e7425f9d012fbe368753d2655c5bce25b1b3c
    Distribution: Linux Mint 18.3
    Processors: 8
    Total Memory: 16695734272 bytes
    Timestamp: Thu Oct 7 11:12:52 2021
    /opt/mssql/lib/mssql-conf/invokesqlservr.sh: line 15: 13845 Aborted
    (core dumped) sudo -EH -u mssql /bin/bash -c “$CMDLINE”

    Created symlink from /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/mssql-server.service to /lib/systemd/system/mssql-server.service.
    Setup has been completed successfully. SQL Server is now starting.

    When I then run the mssql command I get another error:

    /opt/mssql-tools/bin/sqlcmd  -S localhost -U SA -P 'myPassword'
    

    Sqlcmd: Error: Microsoft ODBC Driver 17 for SQL Server : Login timeout expired.
    Sqlcmd: Error: Microsoft ODBC Driver 17 for SQL Server : TCP Provider: Error code 0x2749.
    Sqlcmd: Error: Microsoft ODBC Driver 17 for SQL Server : A network-related or instance-specific error has occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server is not found or not accessible. Check if instance name is correct and if SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. For more information see SQL Server Books Online.

    I chose this Ubuntu installation instruction but I have actually got Linux Mint. Is that the reason for the problems? Do you have another set of instructions for Mint?

    Reply
  2. The RSQL project may interest you. RSQL is a simplified clone of MS SQL Server running on Linux or Windows.

    It can execute basic TSQL scripts. It is still beta and many features must be added yet, but may be good enough for simple C# applications.

    It is also free (GPL license).

    Reply

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