How To Create Database In Linux Server

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Quickstart: Install SQL Server and create a database on Ubuntu

Article
09/21/2021
8 minutes to read

Applies to: SQL Server (all supported versions) - Linux

In this quickstart, you install SQL Server 2017 on Ubuntu 16.04/18.04. You then connect with sqlcmd to create your first database and run queries.

In this quickstart, you install SQL Server 2019 on Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04, or 20.04. You then connect with sqlcmd to create your first database and run queries.

Note

Ubuntu 20.04 is supported starting with SQL Server 2019 CU10.

Prerequisites

Install SQL Server

Note

The following commands for SQL Server 2017 points to the Ubuntu 18.04 repository. If you are using Ubuntu 16.04, change the path below to /ubuntu/16.04/ instead of /ubuntu/18.04/.

To configure SQL Server on Ubuntu, run the following commands in a terminal to install the mssql-server package.

Import the public repository GPG keys:

                  wget -qO- https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | sudo apt-key add -

For Ubuntu 16.04:

                  sudo add-apt-repository "$(wget -qO- https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/16.04/mssql-server-2017.list)"

For Ubuntu 18.04:

                  sudo add-apt-repository "$(wget -qO- https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/18.04/mssql-server-2017.list)"

Tip

If you want to install SQL Server 2019 , you must instead register the SQL Server 2019 repository. Use the following command for SQL Server 2019 installations:

For Ubuntu 16.04:

                    sudo add-apt-repository "$(wget -qO- https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/16.04/mssql-server-2019.list)"

For Ubuntu 18.04:

                    sudo add-apt-repository "$(wget -qO- https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/18.04/mssql-server-2019.list)"

Run the following commands to install SQL Server:

                  sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install -y mssql-server

After the package installation finishes, run mssql-conf setup and follow the prompts to set the SA password and choose your edition.
```
                  sudo /opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf setup                                  
```
Tip

The following SQL Server 2017 editions are freely licensed: Evaluation, Developer, and Express.

Note

Make sure to specify a strong password for the SA account (Minimum length 8 characters, including uppercase and lowercase letters, base 10 digits and/or non-alphanumeric symbols).

Once the configuration is done, verify that the service is running:

                  systemctl status mssql-server --no-pager

If you plan to connect remotely, you might also need to open the SQL Server TCP port (default 1433) on your firewall.

At this point, SQL Server is running on your Ubuntu machine and is ready to use!

Install SQL Server

Note

The following commands for SQL Server 2019 points to the Ubuntu 20.04 repository. If you are using Ubuntu 18.04 or 16.04, change the path below to /ubuntu/18.04/ or /ubuntu/16.04/ instead of /ubuntu/20.04/.

To configure SQL Server on Ubuntu, run the following commands in a terminal to install the mssql-server package.

Import the public repository GPG keys:

                  wget -qO- https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | sudo apt-key add -

For Ubuntu 16.04:

                  sudo add-apt-repository "$(wget -qO- https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/16.04/mssql-server-2019.list)"

For Ubuntu 18.04:

                  sudo add-apt-repository "$(wget -qO- https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/18.04/mssql-server-2019.list)"

For Ubuntu 20.04:

                  sudo add-apt-repository "$(wget -qO- https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/20.04/mssql-server-2019.list)"

Run the following commands to install SQL Server:

                  sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install -y mssql-server

After the package installation finishes, run mssql-conf setup and follow the prompts to set the SA password and choose your edition.
```
                  sudo /opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf setup                                  
```
Note

Make sure to specify a strong password for the SA account (Minimum length 8 characters, including uppercase and lowercase letters, base 10 digits and/or non-alphanumeric symbols).

Once the configuration is done, verify that the service is running:

                  systemctl status mssql-server --no-pager

If you plan to connect remotely, you might also need to open the SQL Server TCP port (default 1433) on your firewall.

At this point, SQL Server 2019 is running on your Ubuntu machine and is ready to use!

To create a database, you need to connect with a tool that can run Transact-SQL statements on the SQL Server. The following steps install the SQL Server command-line tools: sqlcmd and bcp.

Use the following steps to install the mssql-tools on Ubuntu.

Note

By default, curl isn't installed on Ubuntu. To install curl, run this code:

              sudo apt-get update  sudo apt install curl

Import the public repository GPG keys.

                curl https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | sudo apt-key add -

For Ubuntu 16.04:

                curl https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/16.04/prod.list | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/msprod.list

For Ubuntu 18.04:

                curl https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/18.04/prod.list | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/msprod.list

For Ubuntu 20.04:

                curl https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/20.04/prod.list | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/msprod.list

Update the sources list and run the installation command with the unixODBC developer package. For more information, see Install the Microsoft ODBC driver for SQL Server (Linux).

                sudo apt-get update  sudo apt-get install mssql-tools unixodbc-dev

Note

To update to the latest version of mssql-tools run the following commands:

                  sudo apt-get update  sudo apt-get install mssql-tools

Optional: Add /opt/mssql-tools/bin/ to your PATH environment variable in a bash shell.

To make sqlcmd/bcp accessible from the bash shell for login sessions, modify your PATH in the ~/.bash_profile file with the following command:
```
                echo 'export PATH="$PATH:/opt/mssql-tools/bin"' >> ~/.bash_profile                              
```
To make sqlcmd/bcp accessible from the bash shell for interactive/non-login sessions, modify the PATH in the ~/.bashrc file with the following command:
```
                echo 'export PATH="$PATH:/opt/mssql-tools/bin"' >> ~/.bashrc source ~/.bashrc                              
```

Connect locally

The following steps use sqlcmd to locally connect to your new SQL Server instance.

Run sqlcmd with parameters for your SQL Server name (-S), the user name (-U), and the password (-P). In this tutorial, you are connecting locally, so the server name is localhost. The user name is SA and the password is the one you provided for the SA account during setup.
```
                sqlcmd -S localhost -U SA -P '<YourPassword>'                              
```
Tip

You can omit the password on the command line to be prompted to enter it.

Tip

If you later decide to connect remotely, specify the machine name or IP address for the -S parameter, and make sure port 1433 is open on your firewall.
If successful, you should get to a sqlcmd command prompt: 1>.
If you get a connection failure, first attempt to diagnose the problem from the error message. Then review the connection troubleshooting recommendations.

Create and query data

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

Create a new database

The following steps create a new database named TestDB.

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

                CREATE DATABASE TestDB

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

                SELECT Name from sys.Databases

The previous two commands were not executed immediately. You must type GO on a new line to execute the previous commands:
```
                GO                              
```

Insert data

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

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

                USE TestDB

Create new table named Inventory:

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

Insert data into the new table:

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

Type GO to execute the previous commands:

GO

Select data

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

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;

Execute the command:

GO

Exit the sqlcmd command prompt

To end your sqlcmd session, type QUIT:

            QUIT

Performance best practices

After installing SQL Server on Linux, review the best practices for configuring Linux and SQL Server to improve performance for production scenarios. For more information, see Performance best practices and configuration guidelines for SQL Server on Linux.

In addition to sqlcmd, you can use the following cross-platform tools to manage SQL Server:

Tool	Description
Azure Data Studio	A cross-platform GUI database management utility.
Visual Studio Code	A cross-platform GUI code editor that run Transact-SQL statements with the mssql extension.
PowerShell Core	A cross-platform automation and configuration tool based on cmdlets.
mssql-cli	A cross-platform command-line interface for running Transact-SQL commands.

Connecting from Windows

SQL Server tools on Windows connect to SQL Server instances on Linux in the same way they would connect to any remote SQL Server instance.

If you have a Windows machine that can connect to your Linux machine, try the same steps in this topic from a Windows command-prompt running sqlcmd. Just verify that you use the target Linux machine name or IP address rather than localhost, and make sure that TCP port 1433 is open. If you have any problems connecting from Windows, see connection troubleshooting recommendations.

For other tools that run on Windows but connect to SQL Server on Linux, see:

SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
Windows PowerShell
SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT)

Other deployment scenarios

For other installation scenarios, see the following resources:

Upgrade: Learn how to upgrade an existing installation of SQL Server on Linux
Uninstall: Uninstall SQL Server on Linux
Unattended install: Learn how to script the installation without prompts
Offline install: Learn how to manually download the packages for offline installation

Next steps

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