1. Managing and monitoring SQL Server on Linux from the command line
Randolph West, Data Platform MVP

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3. Attendee awareness You know what an operating system is
You know what Linux is
You can navigate around the Linux command line
You know what bash is
You know what a relational database management system is

4. Agenda Installation Configuration with mssql-conf
Querying with mssql-cli
Monitoring with dbfs
Agenda

5. install -y mssql-server
Install your SQL Server instance

6. Supported Linux distros
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) - v7.3+
SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) - v12 SP2+
Ubuntu
Docker engine 1.8+

7. Supported Linux distros
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) - v7.3+
SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) - v12 SP2+
Ubuntu
Docker engine 1.8+
Examples and demos will be performed using Ubuntu

8. How did they get SQL Server on Linux?
arstechnica.com

9. A note on Docker Windows / Linux / macOS host
Stand-alone or orchestrated (OpenShift and Kubernetes)
SQL Server 2019 Big Data Clusters
Persisted storage layer

10. Minimum system requirements
2 GB RAM
6 GB storage on xfs or ext4
2-core x64 CPU at 2 GHz
/var/opt/mssql can be located on NFS

11. mssql-conf
Configure your SQL Server instance

12. What is mssql-conf? Replaces SQL Server Configuration Manager on Linux
Manages instance-level (server) configuration
Written in Python
Writes to a text file

13. How does mssql-cli work?
Takes two or more parameters
Setting and value
Requires super-user permission
sudo

14. Where do I find mssql-conf?
/opt/mssql/bin/ mssql-conf
/var/opt/mssql/ mssql-conf

15. Always remember to restart!
sudo systemctl restart mssql-server

16. mssql-conf examples

17. Enable the SQL Server Agent
sudo /opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf set sqlagent.enabled true

18. Set physical memory allocation
sudo /opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf set memory.memorylimitmb 3328

19. Set instance-level trace flags
sudo /opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf traceflag on

20. Unset custom TCP port
sudo /opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf unset network.tcpport

21. View the mssql-conf settings
sudo cat /var/opt/mssql/mssql-conf
cat means concatenate

22. More configuration options
sql-server-linux-configure-mssql-conf

23. Did you remember to restart?
sudo systemctl restart mssql-server
Docker containers must be fully restarted using: sudo docker restart <container>

24. mssql-conf demo

25. mssql-cli
Query your SQL Server instance

26. What is mssql-cli? Replaces sqlcmd and osql (almost)
Interactive command-line query tool
Written in Python
Full IntelliSense support

27. Configuration file support
mssql-cli features
Autocomplete
Syntax highlighting
Query history
Configuration file support
Multi-line queries

28. Named queries in mssql-cli
Frequently-used queries can be saved as named queries
Save the query:
\sn [name] [query]
Run the query:
\n [name]

29. Subset of special commands
\? → list all special commands
\d → describe objects (calls sp_help)
\e → edit query in external editor

30. Subset of commands to list objects
\ld[+] [pattern] → list databases
\lt[+] [pattern] → list tables
\li[+] [pattern] → list indexes

31. mssql-cli demo

32. dbfs
Monitor your SQL Server instance

33. Monitoring with dbfs
DMVs
FUSE
bash

34. dbfs examples

35. List DMVs with matching pattern
ls | grep –i os | grep –i memory

36. View DMV results in JSON format
cat dm_os_sys_memory.json | python -m json.tool

37. Select and format a subset of a DMV
awk '{print $1,$5}' dm_os_sys_memory | column -t

38. Select, join and sort a DMV result set
join -j 1 -o 1.1,1.16,1.17,2.5,2.8 <(sort -k1 dm_exec_connections) <(sort -k1 dm_exec_connections) -t $'\t' | sort -n -k1 | column -t

39. dbfs demo

40. One more thing…

41. dbatools PowerShell module
500+ commands (admin, migration, best practice)
Includes SQL Server Management Objects (SMO) in the box

42. dbatools continued Targets SQL Server 2000 to 2019
Supports .NET Core with high coverage
Install-Module dbatools

43. dbachecks Pester framework Validate environment
Install-Module dbachecks

44. dbachecks continued Nearly 100 checks
Validate environment using checklists
RTO / RPO / index monitoring / integrity checks / network latency / Agent job monitor
Power BI dashboard built in

45. Summary It’s just SQL Server
Only dbfs is Linux-specific (including Docker!)
Everything else works on all operating systems where SQL Server is supported (PowerShell has some limitations on Linux)

46. Contact me r@ndolph.ca bornsql.ca
SQL Server 2017 Administration Inside Out (Microsoft Press)
SQL Server 2019 Administration Inside Out (coming soon)