Install Latest MS SQL Server with Docker on Ubuntu 22.04

In this guide, we want to teach you to Install the Latest MS SQL Server, SQL Server 2022 with Docker on Ubuntu 22.04. Currently, SQL Server 2022 has a preview list for Ubuntu 22.04. So you can use Docker to easily install the latest SQL server on Ubuntu 22.04. It is one of the best database management systems that can be used on Linux distros. You can follow the steps below to start your Microsoft SQL Server installation on Ubuntu 22.04 by using the Docker.

Steps To Install the Latest MS SQL Server with Docker on Ubuntu 22.04

Because we want to install an MS SQL server with Docker, we need some requirements first. Let’s see what we need.

Requirements

First, you must have access to your server as a non-root user with sudo privileges. To do this, you can follow the Ubuntu 22.04 Initial Server Setup Guide.

Also, you must have Docker running on your server. For this purpose, you can visit the Docker Installation Guide on Ubuntu 22.04.

Now follow the steps below to complete this guide.

Step 1 – Verify Docker Status on Ubuntu 22.04

First, you need to be sure that Docker is up and running on your server. To do this, you can use the command below:

sudo systemctl status docker

In your output, you should see:

Output
● docker.service - Docker Application Container Engine
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/docker.service; enabled; vendor preset>
     Active: active (running) since Wed 2023-09-20 07:53:02 UTC; 40s ago
TriggeredBy: ● docker.socket
       Docs: https://docs.docker.com
   Main PID: 8985 (dockerd)
      Tasks: 9
     Memory: 27.0M
        CPU: 549ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/docker.service
             └─8985 /usr/bin/dockerd -H fd:// --containerd=/run/containerd/cont>

Step 2 – Pull MS SQL Server Docker Image

At this point, you need to use the docker pull command to download the latest image of the MS SQL server on Ubuntu 22.04. To do this, run the command below:

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

When your download is completed, you will get the following output:

Output
2022-latest: Pulling from mssql/server
e481c36a257f: Pull complete
7d8f784510c6: Pull complete
c6ac2a806f6c: Pull complete
1b1611617f54: Pull complete
Digest: sha256:d00c97dedf4f5c785bbbd5894f490d50124ff409d7751fbba2d53eb7de9965da
Status: Downloaded newer image for mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest
mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest

Step 3 – Create and Run MS SQL Server Docker Container on Ubuntu 22.04

At this point, you must create a container for the SQL server that you can use to run it. To do this, you can use the following command:

docker run -e "ACCEPT_EULA=Y" -e "MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=Strongpassword" \
   -p 1433:1433 --name sql1 --hostname sql1 \
   -d \
   mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest

The options used in the command mean:

• -e “ACCEPT_EULA=Y”: Confirm your acceptance of the End-User Licensing Agreement.
• -e “MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=<YourStrong@Passw0rd>”: Specify a strong password for the SQL server. 
• -p 1433:1433: 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 name for the container.
• –hostname sql1: Used to explicitly set the container hostname.
• -d: Run the container in the background.
• mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest: Docker image name.

When it is done, you will get the following output:

Output
9542b451c2f120f4441da3f7e2f3a410681aa9eacde07191bffea408ab523a75

Note: Your password must be at least 8 characters and contain uppercase characters, digits, and symbols.

Step 3 – Verify your SQL Server Container is Running on Ubuntu 22.04

Now you can verify your Docker container is up and running on your server with the following command:

docker ps -a

Output
CONTAINER ID   IMAGE                                        COMMAND                  CREATED         STATUS         PORTS                                       NAMES
fef8fd9b00be   mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest   "/opt/mssql/bin/perm…"   8 seconds ago   Up 7 seconds   0.0.0.0:1433->1433/tcp, :::1433->1433/tcp   sql1

Step 4 – Connect To SQL Server Command Line Shell

At this point when your SQL server container is up and running, you can use the SQL server command-line utility named sqlcmd to connect to your shell.

First, you need to start an interactive shell inside your SQL server container by using the command below:

docker exec -it sql1 "bash"

This will change your prompt to your container.

mssql@sql1:/$

Then, use the following command tool sqlcmd to connect to your shell:

/opt/mssql-tools/bin/sqlcmd -S localhost -U SA -P "sql-server-password"

Put the password you have created for your SQL server and press enter. Now you will see your SQL shell as follows:

>

From your SQL server shell, you can easily run your commands to create databases and manage them.

For example, we create a test database and want to show you the system databases. To do this, run the following commands:

> CREATE DATABASE TestDB;
> SELECT Name from sys.databases;

This will not show you the results, to see the results you must enter the GO command:

> GO

1> CREATE DATABASE TestDB;
2> SELECT Name from sys.databases;
3> GO
Name                                                                                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
master                                                                                     
tempdb                                                                                     
model                                                                                      
msdb                                                                                       
TestDB                                                                                     

(5 rows affected)
1>

To get a List of Microsoft SQL Server queries and commands, you can visit this link.

Conclusion

At this point, you have learned To Install the Latest MS SQL Server with Docker on Ubuntu 22.04. Because the repository of the SQL server doesn’t support the Ubuntu 22.04, you can easily run the SQL server in a Docker container and start using it.

Hope you enjoy it. You may be interested in these articles:

Install a Specific Version of PostgreSQL on Ubuntu 20.04

Install MySQL in Docker Container on Debian 12

Run a Python Script in a Linux Docker Container