Exercise - Install SQL Server on Red Hat

15 minutes

Use the yum tool to install SQL Server on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) servers.

You're a database administrator at the wholesale company Wide World Importers, and want to benefit from SQL Server without having to change the server operating systems. After you deploy SQL Server on a Red Hat server, configure the SQL Server package and install command-line tools. SQL Server is then ready for your developers to use.

In this exercise, you deploy SQL Server on RHEL, install command-line tools, and create a database on SQL Server.

Create a Red Hat virtual machine

Start by creating a Red Hat virtual machine (VM) in Azure:

Use the Cloud Shell sandbox and Azure CLI commands to create a Red Hat 7 server. The az vm create command can take a couple of minutes to complete.

export PASSWORD=$(openssl rand -base64 32)
az vm create \
    --name RedHatServer \
    --resource-group <rgn>[sandbox resource group name]</rgn> \
    --admin-username redhatadmin \
    --admin-password $PASSWORD \
    --image "RedHat:RHEL:7-LVM:latest" \
    --nsg-rule SSH \
    --public-ip-sku Standard \
    --size Standard_D2s_v3 \

Store the public IP address of your server and display the password.

export IPADDRESS=$(az vm show -d \
    --name RedHatServer \
    --query publicIps --output tsv \
    --resource-group <rgn>[sandbox resource group name]</rgn>)
echo $PASSWORD

Connect to the Red Hat VM

Now you have a Red Hat VM ready to install a SQL Server. Connect to it by using Secure Shell (SSH):

In the Cloud Shell, run this command:
```
ssh redhatadmin@$IPADDRESS
```
When asked if you're sure, type yes.
For the password, enter the displayed password from the earlier command, and then press Enter. SSH connects to the VM and shows a bash shell.

Install the SQL Server package

Before using yum to install, you must add a configuration file:

To download the Microsoft SQL Server Red Hat repository configuration file, run this command:

sudo curl -o /etc/yum.repos.d/mssql-server.repo https://packages.microsoft.com/config/rhel/7/mssql-server-2019.repo

If you're asked for a password, use the password displayed earlier, and then press Enter.
To install SQL Server, run this command:
```
sudo yum install -y mssql-server
```

Configure SQL Server

Before using SQL Server, use the mssql-conf script to specify the edition you want and the system administrator password:

Run this command:
```
sudo /opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf setup
```
If prompted for your password, use the password displayed earlier.
To select the Evaluation edition, enter 1.
Type Yes to accept the license terms.
Type Pa$$w0rd and then press Enter to set the system administrator password.
Confirm the password.
To confirm that SQL Server 2019 is running, run this command:
```
systemctl status mssql-server --no-pager
```

Install SQL Server tools

SQL Server is installed. Next, install command-line tools to work with SQL Server:

To download the Microsoft SQL Server tools repository configuration file, run this command:

sudo curl -o /etc/yum.repos.d/msprod.repo https://packages.microsoft.com/config/rhel/7/prod.repo

To install SQL Server command-line tools, run this command:
```
sudo yum install -y mssql-tools unixODBC-devel
```
Type YES to accept the ODBC license terms.
Type YES to accept the license terms.

To add the tools to the PATH environment variable, run these commands:

echo 'export PATH="$PATH:/opt/mssql-tools/bin"' >> ~/.bash_profile
echo 'export PATH="$PATH:/opt/mssql-tools/bin"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Create a database

You can now use the sqlcmd tool to create a database:

Run this command to connect to SQL Server:
```
sqlcmd -S localhost -U sa -P 'Pa$$w0rd'
```
To create a database called WideWorld1, run these SQL commands:
```
CREATE DATABASE WideWorld1
GO
```

To verify that the database was created, run this SQL query:

SELECT name, database_id, create_date FROM sys.databases WHERE name = 'WideWorld1'
GO

To exit the sqlcmd tool and SSH, run the command exit twice.