Introduction
Parrot OS is a light Linux distribution based on Debian. Microsoft SQL Server or SQL Server is a relational database management system (RDBMS) developed by Microsoft. Starting with SQL Server 2017, Microsoft added Linux support and thus making any newer versions cross platform.
This post steps through the process of SQL Server 2019 Developer edition installation on Parrot OS and contains the following topics:
- downloading and configuring MS SQL Server 2019 package repository
- running the SQL Server setup process
- installation of SQL Server command line tools
- installation Azure Data Studio
- running queries in Azure Data Studio
The commands used in this post will also work on any Debian based distribution like Ubuntu, MX Linux, Linux Mint, Knoppix among many others.
Prerequisites
Parrot OS has very minimal memory requirements (256MB) and can be run directly from a USB flash drive. However, to run MS SQL Server 2019, Parrot OS must be installed on a hard disk. The computer running Parrot OS must also meet the following requirements:
- have minimum of 2 GB memory
- have 6 GB or more free hard disk space
- contain a x64 processor with 2 or more cores
Configure SQL Server 2019 Repository
The repository is used to acquire the database engine package, mssql-server, and related SQL Server packages.
Open the Terminal window
Register Microsoft Ubuntu repository by running
curl https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/20.04/mssql-server-2019.list | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mssql-server-2019.list
command and type the password for the super user.tee
command will write the downloaded file to /etc/apt/sources.list.d folder.Run
ls /etc/apt/sources.list.d
command and confirm that mssql-server-2019.list file has been copied to /etc/apt/sources.list.d folder folder and you should see mssql-server-2019.list among the filesRun
sudo apt-get update
to update the systemIf you receive an error 'The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY EB3E94ADBE1229CF', add the key to trusted keys using
gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys EB3E94ADBE1229CF
and re-runsudo apt-get update
command.
Install SQL Server Developer Edition
Run
sudo apt-get install -y mssql-server
command to install SQL ServerAfter the package installation completes, run
sudo /opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf setup
Type 2 to select Developer edition and press the return key
Type Y to accept the license terms and press return key
Type and confirm the system administrator password and press return key. The password should have a minimum of eight characters
Once the configuration is complete, type
systemctl status mssql-server --no-pager
to verify that the service is up and running.--no-pager
will force any long lines to wrap.
Install SQL Server Command Line Tools
Command-line tools are used for running SQL commands from a Terminal window. Various command-line tools are available among them sqsh or SQSHELL, sqlcmd and mssql-cli.
sqsh
Parrot OS comes bundled with sqsh command line tool and therefore, no installation is required.
To use sqsh
, open a Terminal window and run sqsh -S localhost -U sa -C 'SELECT @@VERSION
command and type the SQL Server administrator password you used during setup. This will display the SQL Server version and Linux OS Version and the Terminal prompt is re-displayed.
To login into sqsh interactive terminal, run sqsh -S localhost -U sa
. You will be prompted for the password and if the connection is successful, you will get the sqsh
command prompt '>1'. You exit from the sqsh
interactive session by typing the command exit
or quit` to end the session.
sqlcmd
The sqlcmd utility in SQL Server lets you submit T-SQL statements or batches to a local or remote instance of SQL Server. Before using
Register Microsoft Ubuntu repository by running
curl https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/20.04/prod.list | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/msprod.list
commandRun
sudo apt-get update
andsudo apt-get install mssql-tools unixodbc-dev
to update the sources list and installation commands.Add /opt/mssql-tools/bin/ to your PATH environment variable by running
echo 'export PATH="$PATH:/opt/mssql-tools/bin"' >> ~/.bashrc
andsource ~/.bashrc
commandsTo test connectivity, run
sqlcmd -S localhost -U sa -Q 'SELECT @@VERSION
and enter the password.
To open an sqlcmd interactive session, you use the same command just like sqsh command-line tool but replace sqsh
with sqlcmd
- sqlcmd -S localhost -U sa
. You also use exit or quit to end the session.
While sqsh and sqlcmd may have similarities, sqlcmd has an improved feedback and output format than sqsh.
mssql-cli
mssql-cli is another cross-platform open source interactive command line query tool for SQL Server. Auto-completion, Syntax highlighting and Multi-line queries are some of the features that make mssql-cli more appealing to use compared to sqsh and sqlcmd.
However, at the time of this post, there is no support for Ubuntu 20.04 and Debian 10 which Parrot OS 4.11 is based on.
Install and Launch Azure Data Studio
Some people prefer working with GUI tools instead of command-line tools. If you have installed SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS),
you can connect to an MS SQL Server database installed on Linux through SSMS. As SSMS is only available in Windows operating systems, you can use Azure Data Studio instead of SSMS. Azure Data Studio is a free and cross-platform.
In the following sections, I step through the process of installing, connecting and running queries on Azure Data Studio.
To extract the file, run
sudo dpkg -i ./Downloads/azuredatastudio-linux-<version string>.deb
. Replace<version string>
with the version of the downloaded file. The version I downloaded is 1.29.0 so the command to run will besudo dpkg -i ./Downloads/azuredatastudio-linux-1.29.0.deb
.
Creating a Connection In Azure Data Studio
To Launch Azure Data Studio run
azuredatastudio
from a Terminal window. You can also launch by clicking on the Application Launcher, typing Azure in the search area and select Azure Data Studio.Click on Add Connection on the left sidebar below SERVERS
-
Under Connection Details, fill in the fields as follows:
- Server Name: localhost or just type a . (dot).
- User name: sa
- Password:
- Name (optional): optionally type a preferred name or leave blank to use localhost as the connection name.
Click on Connect button
Run Query In Azure Data Studio
In Azure Data Studio, commands are run through the query window.
Launch Azure Data Studio if not already launched
Right click on localhost or the name of the connection you created
Select New Query
Paste or type your query statements. For our testing, type
SELECT @@VERSION
, andClick on Run
Summary
In this post we went through the process of installing and setting up MS SQL Server 2019 Developer Edition on Parrot OS. The same steps would also be applicable to on any Debian based Linux distribution. After setting up of SQL Server was complete, we looked at working with SQL Server using command-line tools and Azure Data Studio.
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