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Category: Linux

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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Installing SQL Server on Ubuntu 22.04

Published 2023-12-27 by Kevin Feasel

I have a new video:

In this video, we will show how to install SQL Server on a machine running Linux, specifically SQL Server 2022 on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

This ties back to one of my first videos, covering the installation of SQL Server 2022 on Ubuntu 20.04, as at that time, there was no support for Ubuntu 22.04 and some of the libraries Microsoft was counting on had changed, so you couldn’t trick installation by using the 20.04 repository.

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Concatenating Many Files in Azure Blob Storage

Published 2023-12-20 by Kevin Feasel

Drew Furgiuele concatenates a lot of files:

Lately, I’ve found myself with a few requests from friends and users that have a particular problem: they’ve got themselves a data lake in Azure, and they can read and write files just fine to it. The problem, though, is that sometimes they need to take a series of files and mash them all together, or as the cool kids call it: concatenate them. And when it comes to third party tools and methods that can do the trick, you’re spoiled for choice: Azure Data Factory, Spark via Databricks, or even PowerShell.

Case in point: I was working with someone who had tens of thousands of CSV files that they needed to merge together into one big file, but they were already out in their Azure storage account. That doesn’t sound so bad, does it? 

Drew explains why it is, but also why it isn’t. So click through and check that out.

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SQL Server on Linux and the Built-In Administrators Group

Published 2023-12-18 by Kevin Feasel

Andrew Pruski goes messing around:

When I first started working with SQL on Linux one of the first things I did was to remove the default the [BUILTIN\Administrators] login. This is pretty much standard practice with SQL on Windows as we don’t want administrators on the server to have automatic sysadmin rights into the SQL instance.

But this login makes no sense on Linux as there is no administrators group, so it should be dropped…right?

Andrew then goes on to show us why that’s not right. Read the whole thing.

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Deploying SQL Server with Availability Groups via HPE Serviceguard for LInux and Ansible

Published 2023-11-06 by Kevin Feasel

Amit Khandelwal packs a lot into a post:

It’s time for a new blog on how Ansible can simplify SQL Server deployment, configuration, and availability. If you’ve read my previous blogs on Ansible for SQL Server installation and configuration, and the pacemaker-based Always On availability group, you know how powerful Ansible can be. Now, let’s talk about HPE Serviceguard for Linux (SGLX), a high availability/disaster recovery solution that provides business continuity for critical applications like SQL Server.

Deploying SQL Server Always On availability groups on HPE SGLX is a fully supported solution for production workloads.

Today, let’s look at how you can configure Always On availability group based on HPE SGLX via Ansible. We have collaborated with our friends in HPE to enable the Ansible based deployment for HPE SGLX with SQL Server. This feature is now available for HPE SGLX 15.10. For this demonstration, you can download the evaluation bits from the ‘My HPE Software Center‘. The Ansible bits with the scripts are available on GitHub: 

Read on for instructions and what you need to make it all work.

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SQL Server 2022 on SuSE Enterprise Linux Now Available in Azure Marketplace

Published 2023-10-04 by Kevin Feasel

Arvind Mahadevan has an announcement:

We are pleased to announce that we have worked with both SUSE and Microsoft engineering teams to release the latest SQL Server 2022 on SLES v15 SP5 Azure Marketplace image. This is in alignment with our goal to have the latest SQL Server on Linux Azure Marketplace images.

It’s a short post but does give us an idea of where they’re at on Linux support. Support for Ubuntu 22.04 is still in preview, so I’d expect that to come out soon as well.

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Choosing the Correct Enterprise Edition for SQL on Linux

Published 2023-10-02 by Kevin Feasel

Amit Khandelwal disambiguates two options:

Recently, in one of the meetings with our CSS team (support) we realized that our customers might not be selecting the right Enterprise edition for their SQL Servers deployed on Linux. To learn more about different SQL Server editions please refer: Editions and supported features of SQL Server 2022 – SQL Server | Microsoft Learn.

Thus, through this blog we would like to provide guidance on how you can identify and update the SQL Server to use the right Enterprise edition which should show up in the error log as : “Enterprise Edition: Core-based Licensing (64-bit)” and not “Enterprise Edition (64-bit)” which is only needed in case you need to follow historical licensing agreements that limits to a maximum 20 cores per SQL Server instance.

Read on to learn how you can change the edition if you did indeed goof on the installation.

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Building a Retry Mechanism for sqlcmd in Bash

Published 2023-09-28 by Kevin Feasel

Jose Manuel Jurado Diaz won’t let failure get him down:

Introduction:

Efficiently managing temporary failures and timeouts is crucial in production environments when connecting to databases. In this article, we’ll explore how to implement a retry mechanism with sqlcmd in a Bash script, dynamically increasing timeouts with each failed attempt.

Problem Statement:

Operations can fail due to network issues, overloaded servers, or other temporary problems when interacting with databases. Implementing a retry mechanism helps address these temporary issues without manual intervention.

Read on for the solution script. You could also adapt this to Powershell fairly easily, I think, though if you do go down that road, I’d recommend taking a look at Polly and PsPolly.

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