Configure SQL Server settings with environment variables on Linux

Applies to: SQL Server - Linux

You can use several different environment variables to configure SQL Server 2022 (16.x) on Linux. These variables are used in two scenarios:

• To configure initial setup with the mssql-conf setup command.
• To configure a new SQL Server container in Docker.

Tip

If you need to configure SQL Server after these setup scenarios, see Configure SQL Server on Linux with the mssql-conf tool.

Environment variables

Environment variable	Description
ACCEPT_EULA	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.
MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD	Configure the SA user password. The SA_PASSWORD environment variable is deprecated. Use MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD instead.
MSSQL_PID	Set the SQL Server edition or product key. Possible values include: Evaluation Developer Express Web Standard Enterprise 1 EnterpriseCore 1 A product key If specifying a product key, it must be in the form of #####-#####-#####-#####-#####, where '#' is a number or a letter.
MSSQL_LCID	Sets the language ID to use for SQL Server. For example, 1036 is French.
MSSQL_COLLATION	Sets the default collation for SQL Server. This overrides the default mapping of language ID (LCID) to collation.
MSSQL_MEMORY_LIMIT_MB	Sets the maximum amount of memory (in MB) that SQL Server can use. By default, it's 80% of the total physical memory.
MSSQL_TCP_PORT	Configure the TCP port that SQL Server listens on (default 1433).
MSSQL_IP_ADDRESS	Set the IP address. Currently, the IP address must be IPv4 style (0.0.0.0).
MSSQL_BACKUP_DIR	Set the Default backup directory location.
MSSQL_DATA_DIR	Change the directory where the new SQL Server database data files (.mdf) are created.
MSSQL_LOG_DIR	Change the directory where the new SQL Server database log (.ldf) files are created.
MSSQL_DUMP_DIR	Change the directory where SQL Server deposits the memory dumps and other troubleshooting files by default.
MSSQL_ENABLE_HADR	Enable Availability Group. For example, '1' is enabled, and '0' is disabled
MSSQL_AGENT_ENABLED	Enable SQL Server Agent. For example, 'true' is enabled and 'false' is disabled. By default, agent is disabled.
MSSQL_MASTER_DATA_FILE	Sets the location of the master database data file. Must be named master.mdf until first run of SQL Server.
MSSQL_MASTER_LOG_FILE	Sets the location of the master database log file. Must be named mastlog.ldf until first run of SQL Server.
MSSQL_ERROR_LOG_FILE	Sets the location of the errorlog files. For example, /var/opt/mssql/log/errorlog.

¹ The legacy Enterprise license represents Enterprise edition with Server + Client Access License (CAL) based licensing, and is limited to a maximum of 20 cores per SQL Server instance. Enterprise isn't available for new agreements. You should choose EnterpriseCore when you wish to deploy Enterprise edition. EnterpriseCore represents the core-based server licensing model with no core limits. For more information, see Compute capacity limits by edition of SQL Server.

Use with initial setup

This example runs mssql-conf setup with configured environment variables. The following environment variables are specified:

• ACCEPT_EULA accepts the end user license agreement.
• MSSQL_PID specifies the freely licensed Developer Edition of SQL Server for non-production use.
• MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD sets a strong password.
• MSSQL_TCP_PORT sets the TCP port that SQL Server listens on to 1234.

sudo ACCEPT_EULA='Y' MSSQL_PID='Developer' MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD='<YourStrong!Passw0rd>' MSSQL_TCP_PORT=1234 /opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf setup

Use with Docker

This example docker command uses the following environment variables to create a new SQL Server container:

• ACCEPT_EULA accepts the end user license agreement.
• MSSQL_PID specifies the freely licensed Developer Edition of SQL Server for non-production use.
• MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD sets a strong password.
• MSSQL_TCP_PORT sets the TCP port that SQL Server listens on to 1234. This means that instead of mapping port 1433 (default) to a host port, the custom TCP port must be mapped with the -p 1234:1234 command in this example.

If you're running Docker on Linux, use the following syntax with single quotes:

docker run -e ACCEPT_EULA=Y -e MSSQL_PID='Developer' -e MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD='<YourStrong!Passw0rd>' -e MSSQL_TCP_PORT=1234 -p 1234:1234 -d mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest

If you're running Docker on Windows, use the following syntax with double quotes:

docker run -e ACCEPT_EULA=Y -e MSSQL_PID="Developer" -e MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD="<YourStrong!Passw0rd>" -e MSSQL_TCP_PORT=1234 -p 1234:1234 -d mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest

Related content

• Configure SQL Server on Linux with the mssql-conf tool
• Install SQL Server on Linux

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