Quickstart: Run SQL Server Linux container images with Docker

Applies to: SQL Server - Linux

In this quickstart, you'll use Docker to pull and run the SQL Server 2022 (16.x) Linux container image, mssql-server-linux. Then you can connect with sqlcmd to create your first database and run queries.

For more information on supported platforms, see Release notes for SQL Server 2022 (16.x) on Linux.

Tip

This quickstart creates SQL Server 2022 (16.x) containers. If you prefer to create Linux containers for different versions of SQL Server, see the SQL Server 2017 (14.x) or SQL Server 2019 (15.x) versions of this article.

This image consists of SQL Server running on Linux based on Ubuntu 20.04. It can be used with the Docker Engine 1.8+ on Linux.

The examples in this article use the docker command. However, most of these commands also work with Podman. Podman provides a command-line interface similar to the Docker Engine. You can find out more about Podman.

Prerequisites

• Docker Engine 1.8+ on any supported Linux distribution. For more information, see Install Docker.

• For more information on hardware requirements and processor support, see:

  • SQL Server 2016 and 2017: Hardware and software requirements
  • SQL Server 2019: Hardware and software requirements

• Docker overlay2 storage driver. This driver is the default for most users. If you aren't using this storage provider and need to change, see the instructions and warnings in the Docker documentation for configuring overlay2.

• At least 2 GB of disk space.

• At least 2 GB of RAM.

• System requirements for SQL Server on Linux.

Pull and run the SQL Server Linux container image

Before starting the following steps, make sure that you've selected your preferred shell (bash, PowerShell, or cmd) at the top of this article.

1. Pull the SQL Server 2022 (16.x) Linux container image from the Microsoft Container Registry.

   sudo docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest
   

   docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest
   

   docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest
   

   Tip

   This quickstart creates SQL Server 2022 (16.x) containers. If you prefer to create Linux containers for different versions of SQL Server, see the SQL Server 2017 (14.x) or SQL Server 2019 (15.x) versions of this article.

   The previous command pulls the latest SQL Server 2022 (16.x) Linux container image. If you want to pull a specific image, you add a colon and the tag name, such as mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-GA-ubuntu. To see all available images, see the mssql-server Docker hub page.

   For the bash commands in this article, sudo is used. If you don't want to use sudo to run Docker, you can configure a docker group and add users to that group. For more information, see Post-installation steps for Linux.

2. To run the Linux container image with Docker, you can use the following command from a bash shell or elevated PowerShell command prompt.

   Important

   The SA_PASSWORD environment variable is deprecated. Please use MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD instead.

   sudo docker run -e "ACCEPT_EULA=Y" -e "MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=<YourStrong@Passw0rd>" \
      -p 1433:1433 --name sql1 --hostname sql1 \
      -d \
      mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest
   

   Note

   If you are using PowerShell Core, replace the double quotes with single quotes.

   docker run -e "ACCEPT_EULA=Y" -e "MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=<YourStrong@Passw0rd>" `
      -p 1433:1433 --name sql1 --hostname sql1 `
      -d `
      mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest
   

   docker run -e "ACCEPT_EULA=Y" -e "MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=<YourStrong@Passw0rd>" `
      -p 1433:1433 --name sql1 --hostname sql1 `
      -d `
      mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest
   

   Your password should follow the SQL Server default password policy, otherwise the container can't set up SQL Server and will stop working. By default, the password must be at least eight characters long and contain characters from three of the following four sets: uppercase letters, lowercase letters, base-10 digits, and symbols. You can examine the error log by using the docker logs command.

   By default, this quickstart creates a container with the Developer edition of SQL Server. The process for running production editions in containers is slightly different. For more information, see Run production container images.

   The following table provides a description of the parameters in the previous docker run example:

   Parameter	Description
   -e "ACCEPT_EULA=Y"	Set the ACCEPT_EULA variable to any value to confirm your acceptance of the End-User Licensing Agreement. Required setting for the SQL Server image.
   -e "MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=<YourStrong@Passw0rd>"	Specify your own strong password that is at least eight characters and meets the SQL Server password requirements. Required setting for the SQL Server image.
   -e "MSSQL_COLLATION=<SQL_Server_collation>"	Specify a custom SQL Server collation, instead of the default SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS.
   -p 1433:1433	Map a TCP port on the host environment (first value) with a TCP port in the container (second value). In this example, SQL Server is listening on TCP 1433 in the container and this container port is then exposed to TCP port 1433 on the host.
   --name sql1	Specify a custom name for the container rather than a randomly generated one. If you run more than one container, you can't reuse this same name.
   --hostname sql1	Used to explicitly set the container hostname. If you don't specify the hostname, it defaults to the container ID, which is a randomly generated system GUID.
   -d	Run the container in the background (daemon).
   mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest	The SQL Server Linux container image.

3. To view your Docker containers, use the docker ps command.

   sudo docker ps -a
   

   docker ps -a
   

   docker ps -a
   

   You should see output similar to the following:

   CONTAINER ID   IMAGE                                        COMMAND                    CREATED         STATUS         PORTS                                       NAMES
   d4a1999ef83e   mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest   "/opt/mssql/bin/perm..."   2 minutes ago   Up 2 minutes   0.0.0.0:1433->1433/tcp, :::1433->1433/tcp   sql1
   

4. If the STATUS column shows a status of Up, then SQL Server is running in the container and listening on the port specified in the PORTS column. If the STATUS column for your SQL Server container shows Exited, see the Troubleshooting section of the configuration guide. The server is ready for connections once the SQL Server error logs display the message: SQL Server is now ready for client connections. This is an informational message; no user action is required. You can review the SQL Server error log inside the container using the command:

   docker exec -t sql1 cat /var/opt/mssql/log/errorlog | grep connection
   

   The --hostname parameter, as discussed above, changes the internal name of the container to a custom value. This value is the name you'll see returned in the following Transact-SQL query:

   SELECT @@SERVERNAME,
       SERVERPROPERTY('ComputerNamePhysicalNetBIOS'),
       SERVERPROPERTY('MachineName'),
       SERVERPROPERTY('ServerName');
   

   Setting --hostname and --name to the same value is a good way to easily identify the target container.

5. As a final step, change your SA password because the MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD is visible in ps -eax output and stored in the environment variable of the same name. See steps below.

Change the system administrator password

The SA account is a system administrator on the SQL Server instance that gets created during setup. After you create your SQL Server container, the MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD environment variable you specified is discoverable by running echo $MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD in the container. For security purposes, change your SA password.

1. Choose a strong password to use for the SA user.

2. Use docker exec to run sqlcmd to change the password using Transact-SQL. In the following example, the old and new passwords are read from user input.

   sudo docker exec -it sql1 /opt/mssql-tools/bin/sqlcmd \
   -S localhost -U SA \
    -P "$(read -sp "Enter current SA password: "; echo "${REPLY}")" \
    -Q "ALTER LOGIN SA WITH PASSWORD=\"$(read -sp "Enter new SA password: "; echo "${REPLY}")\""
   

1. Choose a strong password to use for the SA user.

2. In the following example, replace the old password, <YourStrong@Passw0rd>, and the new password, <YourNewStrong@Passw0rd>, with your own password values.

   docker exec -it sql1 /opt/mssql-tools/bin/sqlcmd `
      -S localhost -U SA -P "<YourStrong@Passw0rd>" `
      -Q "ALTER LOGIN SA WITH PASSWORD='<YourNewStrong@Passw0rd>'"
   

1. Choose a strong password to use for the SA user.

2. In the following example, replace the old password, <YourStrong@Passw0rd>, and the new password, <YourNewStrong@Passw0rd>, with your own password values.

   docker exec -it sql1 /opt/mssql-tools/bin/sqlcmd `
      -S localhost -U SA -P "<YourStrong@Passw0rd>" `
      -Q "ALTER LOGIN SA WITH PASSWORD='<YourNewStrong@Passw0rd>'"
   

Connect to SQL Server

The following steps use the SQL Server command-line tool, sqlcmd, inside the container to connect to SQL Server.

1. Use the docker exec -it command to start an interactive bash shell inside your running container. In the following example sql1 is name specified by the --name parameter when you created the container.

   sudo docker exec -it sql1 "bash"
   

   docker exec -it sql1 "bash"
   

   docker exec -it sql1 "bash"
   

2. Once inside the container, connect locally with sqlcmd, using its full path.

   /opt/mssql-tools/bin/sqlcmd -S localhost -U SA -P "<YourNewStrong@Passw0rd>"
   

   Tip

   You can omit the password on the command-line to be prompted to enter it. Here's an example:

     /opt/mssql-tools/bin/sqlcmd -S localhost -U SA
   

3. If successful, you should get to a sqlcmd command prompt: 1>.

Create and query data

The following sections walk you through using sqlcmd and Transact-SQL to create a new database, add data, and run a query.

Create a new database

The following steps create a new database named TestDB.

1. From the sqlcmd command prompt, paste the following Transact-SQL command to create a test database:

   CREATE DATABASE TestDB;
   

2. On the next line, write a query to return the name of all of the databases on your server:

   SELECT Name from sys.databases;
   

3. The previous two commands weren't run immediately. Type GO on a new line to run the previous commands:

   GO
   

Insert data

Next create a new table, Inventory, and insert two new rows.

1. From the sqlcmd command prompt, switch context to the new TestDB database:

   USE TestDB;
   

2. Create new table named Inventory:

   CREATE TABLE Inventory (id INT, name NVARCHAR(50), quantity INT);
   

3. Insert data into the new table:

   INSERT INTO Inventory VALUES (1, 'banana', 150); INSERT INTO Inventory VALUES (2, 'orange', 154);
   

4. Type GO to run the previous commands:

   GO
   

Select data

Now, run a query to return data from the Inventory table.

1. From the sqlcmd command prompt, enter a query that returns rows from the Inventory table where the quantity is greater than 152:

   SELECT * FROM Inventory WHERE quantity > 152;
   

2. Run the command:

   GO
   

Exit the sqlcmd command prompt

1. To end your sqlcmd session, type QUIT:

   QUIT
   

2. To exit the interactive command-prompt in your container, type exit. Your container continues to run after you exit the interactive bash shell.

Connect from outside the container

You can also connect to the SQL Server instance on your Docker machine from any external Linux, Windows, or macOS tool that supports SQL connections. The external tool will use the IP address for the host machine.

The following steps use sqlcmd outside of your container to connect to SQL Server running in the container. These steps assume that you already have the SQL Server command-line tools installed outside of your container. The same principles apply when using other tools, but the process of connecting is unique to each tool.

1. Find the IP address for your container's host machine, using ifconfig or ip addr.

2. For this example, install the sqlcmd tool on your client machine. For more information, see Install sqlcmd on Windows or Install sqlcmd on Linux.

3. Run sqlcmd specifying the IP address and the port mapped to port 1433 in your container. In this example, the port is the same as port 1433 on the host machine. If you specified a different mapped port on the host machine, you would use it here. You'll also need to open the appropriate inbound port on your firewall to allow the connection.

   sqlcmd -S <ip_address>,1433 -U SA -P "<YourNewStrong@Passw0rd>"
   

   sqlcmd -S <ip_address>,1433 -U SA -P "<YourNewStrong@Passw0rd>"
   

   sqlcmd -S <ip_address>,1433 -U SA -P "<YourNewStrong@Passw0rd>"
   

4. Run Transact-SQL commands. When finished, type QUIT.

Other common tools to connect to SQL Server include:

• Visual Studio Code
• SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) on Windows
• Azure Data Studio
• mssql-cli (Preview)
• PowerShell Core

Remove your container

If you want to remove the SQL Server container used in this tutorial, run the following commands:

sudo docker stop sql1
sudo docker rm sql1

docker stop sql1
docker rm sql1

docker stop sql1
docker rm sql1

Warning

Stopping and removing a container permanently deletes any SQL Server data in the container. If you need to preserve your data, create and copy a backup file out of the container or use a container data persistence technique.

Docker demo

After you have tried using the SQL Server Linux container image for Docker, you might want to know how Docker is used to improve development and testing. The following video shows how Docker can be used in a continuous integration and deployment scenario.

Next steps

• Restore a SQL Server database in a Linux container.
• Learn about running multiple containers and data persistence.
• Troubleshoot SQL Server Linux containers.

Also, check out the mssql-docker GitHub repository for resources, feedback, and known issues.

Contribute to SQL documentation

Did you know that you can edit SQL content yourself? If you do so, not only do you help improve our documentation, but you also get credited as a contributor to the page.

For more information, see How to contribute to SQL Server documentation