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Category: Linux

Supported Distributions for SQL Server on Linux

Published 2019-08-08 by Kevin Feasel

Kevin Chant looks at each of the supported distributions for installing SQL Server on Linux:

Another key point is that even though SQL Server on Linux is supported on various distributions SQL Server can be installed on other distributions instead.

Although I would only advise this for testing purposes only because SQL Server would not be supported by Microsoft on these other distributions.

In reality, you can probably install SQL Server on more diverse distributions than the ones listed. However, I have focused on the main ones below.

As Kevin points out, there’s a difference between “working” and “supported.” If you’re futzing about with a dev database or trying to learn the platform, go ahead and install it on Elementary or some other unsupported distro. But if you have a production issue, the fact that you installed SQL Server on an ancient version of Slackware may win you plaudits but won’t get you support.

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Distributed Transactions on Linux

Published 2019-08-05 by Kevin Feasel

Tejas Shah and crew announce distributed transactions with SQL Server on Linux:

With SQL Server 2017, a new era was heralded with SQL server being available to deploy on Linux (and Linux based container) systems. While all functionality of the SQL Server engine were brought over as is to SQL Server on Linux, some of the functionality which depended on Windows system processes such as distributed transactions (which relies on MSDTC service) were not brought over immediately.

Well, now your wait is over.

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Keeping Bash Scripts Reusable

Published 2019-08-01 by Kevin Feasel

Kellyn Pot’vin-Gorman explains some of the concepts behind scripting for longevity:

I’m going to admit, that the reason I didn’t embrace Powershell at first, was most of the examples I found were of full of hardcoded values.  I found it incredibly obtuse, but I started to realize that it came from many sources who might not have the scripting history that those of other shells, (this was just my theory, not a lot of evidence to prove on this one, so keep that in mind…)  As Powershell scripts have matured, I’ve noticed how many are starting to build them with more dynamic values and advance scripting options, and with this, I’ve become more comfortable with Powershell.

I think the best way to learn is to see real examples, so let’s demonstrate.

Read on for those examples.

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Getting Powershell 7 Preview on Ubuntu

Published 2019-08-01 by Kevin Feasel

Max Trinidad shows us how to get the Powershell 7 preview without using apt:

First, look under the release documentation and search for the deb package. In my case I’m install the amd64 version.

Then, right-click on the “powershell-preview_7.0.0-preview.2-1.ubuntu.18.04_amd64.deb”, and select “Copy link address“.

This is also something you could script out. It’s quite useful in scenarios where your apt repositories don’t have the latest version of something but you still need or want it.

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T-SQL Tuesday 116 Roundup

Published 2019-07-18 by Kevin Feasel

Tracy Boggiano hosted this month’s T-SQL Tuesday, on the topic of SQL Server on Linux:

I noticed a common theme in how easy it is to install SQL on Linux that tells me if you didn’t think you had time to install SQL on Linux then you probably do and should give a try in the near future.

Thanks for all that participated!

Let me put it this way: one of my employees, who had never really worked with SQL Server before, got SQL Server on Linux installed through Docker in about 15 minutes. It’s really easy to do.

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Extended Events Files on Linux

Published 2019-07-11 by Kevin Feasel

Jason Brimhall looks at an error when trying to set up an Extended Events session on Linux:

This will fail before the query really even gets out of the gate. Why? The proc xp_create_subdir cannot create the directory because it requires elevated permissions. The fix for that is easy enough – grant permissions to write to the Database directory after creating it while in sudo mode. I will get to that in just a bit. Let’s see what the errors would look like for now.

Msg 22048, Level 16, State 1, Line 15
xp_create_subdir() returned error 5, ‘Access is denied.’
Msg 25602, Level 17, State 23, Line 36
The target, “5B2DA06D-898A-43C8-9309-39BBBE93EBBD.package0.event_file”, encountered a configuration error during initialization. Object cannot be added to the event session. The operating system returned error 5: ‘Access is denied.
‘ while creating the file ‘C:\Database\XE\PREEMPTIVE_OS_PIPEOPS_0_132072025269680000.xel’

Read on for the solution.

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dbatools and Linux

Published 2019-07-10 by Kevin Feasel

Chrissy LeMaire takes us through dbatools support on Linux:

As a long-time Linux user and open-source advocate, I was beyond excited when PowerShell and SQL Server came to Linux.

A few of the decisions I made about dbatools were actually inspired by Linux. For instance, when dbatools was initially released, it was GNU GPL licensed, which is the same license as the Linux kernel (we’ve since re-licensed under the more permissive MIT). In addition, dbatools’ all-lower-case naming convention was also inspired by Linux, as most commands executed within Linux are in lower-case and a number of projects use the lower-case naming convention as well.

Considering how many OS-specific operations there are, the percentage of Powershell commands in dbatools which work is excellent.

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Configuring the Windows Subsystem for Linux

Published 2019-06-20 by Kevin Feasel

Drew Furgiuele is too cool for Windows shells:

Microsoft has provided a native Linux experience for Windows, called the Windows Subsystem for Linux, or WSL. If you haven’t heard of this feature yet, here’s the short version of what this means:

– “Install” a Linux distribution of you choice into your Windows 10 environment, which
– Enables you to run common Linux command line tools, like grep and sed, which is something your Linux using friends and co-workers have been bragging about since like, forever, and
– Gives you access to other Linux applications and commands, available via your chosen distribution’s package manager, and oh before I forget
– Gives you an honest-to-goodness native SSH shell experience on your machine without the need for a third party application

Sounds cool, right? Well, it is. 

It is.

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Persistent Memory and SQL Server

Published 2019-06-07 by Kevin Feasel

Ned Otter gives us the rundown on Persistent Memory and how it can make life smoother:

SQL 2017 on Windows Server 2016 behaves the same as SQL 2016 on Windows Server 2016 – “tail of the log” is supported. However, there is no support for PMEM with SQL 2017 on supported Linux distributions (except as a traditional block store). Using PMEM with SQL 2019 on Linux supports what’s known as “enlightenment”, which allows us to place data and log files on DAX formatted volumes, thereby reducing latency considerably. SQL 2019 on Linux also support “tail of the log”.

This is one of those areas where understanding Linux versus Windows administration really pays off, at least until Windows Server supports something like enlightenment.

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PolyBase on Linux

Published 2019-05-23 by Kevin Feasel

I have a post showing how to set up PolyBase on Linux:

Now that we have SQL Server on Linux installed, we can begin to install PolyBase. There are some instructions here but because we started with the Docker image, we’ll need to do a little bit of prep work. Let’s get our shell on.

First, run docker ps to figure out your container ID. Mine is 818623137e9f. From there, run the following command, replacing the container ID with a reasonable facsimile of yours.

I actually fired up my copy of SimCity 2000 to take a screenshot for this post. The things I do for my audience.

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