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Category: Linux

Basic Troubleshooting in SQL Server on Linux

Published 2024-07-22 by Kevin Feasel

Infant Arockiaraj gives people an idea of where to look:

Based on our extensive experience with customers using SQL on Linux, we have compiled a guide outlining fundamental troubleshooting steps and available tools to assist in resolving SQL on Linux issues. This guide aims to make it easier for SQL DBAs who have primarily worked on Windows operating systems over the years.

In this article, we will normalize three checks in Linux that we typically perform in Windows to start troubleshooting issues with SQL Server: 

  • System logs
  • SQL Server logs
  • Task Manager

Note: The screenshots in the below examples are taken from RHEL and Ubuntu machines, and while the Linux flavors are different, the commands are similar in both environments. 

Click through to learn more about these steps and where you can find the files..

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adutil Now Available for RHEL 9 and Ubuntu 22.04

Published 2024-06-25 by Kevin Feasel

Amit Khandelwal has good news for us:

We’re thrilled to share that adutil, the Active Directory Utility for SQL Server, is now officially supported on RHEL 9 and Ubuntu 22.04. If you’ve been waiting for this, your patience has paid off! Let’s dive into the details.

I had released a video on Active Directory in SQL Server on Linux that included a workaround to get adutil going on Ubuntu 22.04. I’m glad that part of the video is now obsolete.

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sqlcmd and Self-Signed Certificates

Published 2024-04-17 by Kevin Feasel

Vlad Drumea is a trusting fellow:

This post covers a few ways to fix the SSL certificate error 1416F086 returned by sqlcmd on Linux when connecting to SQL Server.

If you’re looking for ways to fix the Windows equivalent of this error when using dbatools, check out this blog post.

It’s interesting how much controversy we’re seeing around tools like sqlcmd and (especially) SQL Server Management Studio defaulting to mandatory encryption. Having signed and valid certificates is a critical part of validating that this SQL Server is actually the one you think it is, and no intermediary attacker has swapped the certificate out with a phony one that allows the attacker to spy on your interactions.

I can understand people who are just messing around with SQL Server locally to experience pain on this, but the sheer number of actual companies—including companies using Central Management Servers, which implies having multiple SQL Server instances—with garbage-tier self-signed certificates is discouragingly high.

By the way, I’m aiming none of my rant at Vlad or this post. It’s just top-of-mind and this was as good a vehicle for rant delivery as I could find.

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Resetting the sa Password in SQL Server on Linux

Published 2024-04-16 by Kevin Feasel

Vlad Drumea blames the intern:

This is pretty useful if you’ve inherited a SQL Server instance running on Linux, but the last person™ didn’t bother saving the sa password in your teams password manager vault.
Or, if you’re like me, and spin up test instances with random passwords for sa that you don’t bother saving anywhere.

Click through to see where you can find out how to reset the password, and then the actual mechanics of password reset.

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Using Key Vault in SQL Server on Linux

Published 2024-03-21 by Kevin Feasel

Aravind Mahadevan shares information on a new bit of functionality:

We’re excited to announce that Extensible Key Management (EKM) using Azure Key Vault in SQL Server on Linux is now generally available from SQL Server 2022 CU12 onwards, which allows you to manage encryption keys outside of SQL Server using Azure Key Vaults.

In this blog post, we’ll explore how to leverage Azure Key Vault as an EKM provider for SQL Server on Linux.

Read on to see how to set this up.

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SQL Server Failover Clusters in Linux

Published 2024-02-07 by Kevin Feasel

I phone it in:

In this video, we will talk about Failover Cluster Instances in SQL Server on Linux.

This video stays in the academic realm because I don’t have an enterprise version of Linux (either RHEL or SLES) and don’t have a SAN or NAS, so I couldn’t actually show any of it off. Still, somehow I turned the utter lack of demo into almost a 20-minute video.

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Firewalls and TLS in SQL Server on Linux

Published 2024-01-24 by Kevin Feasel

I have a new video out:

In this video, we harden our SQL Server instance in two ways: by using a firewall to limit inbound traffic, and by using a certificate to force encrypted connections to SQL Server.

This was a video I enjoyed creating. It also shows the progress of SQL Server security: go back to 2005 (pre-SP1) and even SQL authentication over TDS was unencrypted by default. They fixed it so that the authentication would use a self-signed cert but the data you’d get back from query results was unencrypted. Nowadays, encryption is easy (if you’re okay with a self-signed cert) and some future version of SQL Server will make it mandatory.

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SSIS on Linux

Published 2024-01-10 by Kevin Feasel

I am not amused:

In this video, we bang our heads against the wall repeatedly with respect to SQL Server Integration Services. I spend a lot more time than I want to but we do get a mostly-functional product mostly working.

This was a frustrating video to make, but I think it was important to make it clear just what SSIS on Linux can and cannot do.

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Configuring and Troubleshooting SQL Server on Linux

Published 2024-01-03 by Kevin Feasel

I have a new video:

In this video, we will run through detailed configuration recommendations for SQL Server on Linux. We will also find out where you can find your error logs.

This is a mix of show and tell, as I couldn’t show some of the recommendations on my particular hardware. Still, there are a whole boatload of links to additional resources if you want to learn more about why Microsoft chose specific things to show in their SQL Server on Linux performance tuning recommendations.

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