Here I'll show you how to get SQL Server up and running on your Mac in less than half an hour. And the best part is, you'll have SQL Server running locally without needing any virtualization software.
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Ms Sql Management Studio For Mac Pro
Prior to SQL Server 2017, if you wanted to run SQL Server on your Mac, you first had to create a virtual machine (using VirtualBox, Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion, or Bootcamp), then install Windows onto that VM, then finally SQL Server. This is still a valid option depending on your requirements (here's how to install SQL Server on a Mac with VirtualBox if you'd like to try that method).
Starting with SQL Server 2017, you can now install SQL Server directly on to a Linux machine. And because macOS is Unix based (and Linux is Unix based), you can run SQL Server for Linux on your Mac. The way to do this is to run SQL Server on Docker.
Visual Studio IDE Visual Studio for Mac Visual Studio Code To continue downloading, click here SQL Server Data Tools Visual Studio 2020-08-28T11:50:50-07:00. Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS or S.S.M.S.) is the integrated environment for managing your SQL Server infrastructure. SQL Server Management Studio presents a graphical interface for configuring, monitoring, and administering instances of SQL Server.
So let's go ahead and install Docker. Then we'll download and install SQL Server.
Install Docker
Download the (free) Docker Community Edition for Mac (unless you've already got it installed on your system). This will enable you to run SQL Server from within a Docker container.
To download, visit the Docker CE for Mac download page and click Get Docker.
To install, double-click on the .dmg file and then drag the Docker.app icon to your Application folder.
What is Docker?
Docker is a platform that enables software to run in its own isolated environment. SQL Server (from 2017) can be run on Docker in its own isolated container. Once Docker is installed, you simply download — or 'pull' — the SQL Server on Linux Docker Image to your Mac, then run it as a Docker container. This container is an isolated environment that contains everything SQL Server needs to run.
Launch Docker
Launch Docker the same way you'd launch any other application (eg, via the Applications folder, the Launchpad, etc).
When you open Docker, you might be prompted for your password so that Docker can install its networking components and links to the Docker apps. Go ahead and provide your password, as Docker needs this to run.
Increase the Memory (optional)
By default, Docker will have 2GB of memory allocated to it. SQL Server needs at least 2GB. However, it won't hurt to increase it if you can.
In my case, I increased it to 4GB.
To do this, select Preferences from the little Docker icon in the top menu:
Then finish off by clicking Apply & Restart
Download SQL Server
Now that Docker is installed, we can download and install SQL Server for Linux.
Open a Terminal window and run the following command.
This downloads the latest SQL Server 2019 for Linux Docker image to your computer.
You can also check for the latest container version on the Docker website if you wish.
Launch the Docker Image
Run the following command to launch an instance of the Docker image you just downloaded:
But of course, use your own name and password. Also, if you downloaded a different Docker image, replace
mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2019-latest
with the one you downloaded.Here's an explanation of the parameters:
-d
This optional parameter launches the Docker container in daemon mode. This means that it runs in the background and doesn't need its own Terminal window open. You can omit this parameter to have the container run in its own Terminal window. --name sql_server_demo
Another optional parameter. This parameter allows you to name the container. This can be handy when stopping and starting your container from the Terminal. -e 'ACCEPT_EULA=Y'
The Y
shows that you agree with the EULA (End User Licence Agreement). This is required in order to have SQL Server for Linux run on your Mac.-e 'SA_PASSWORD=reallyStrongPwd123'
Required parameter that sets the sa
database password.-p 1433:1433
This maps the local port 1433 to port 1433 on the container. This is the default TCP port that SQL Server uses to listen for connections. mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2019-latest
This tells Docker which image to use. If you downloaded a different one, use it instead. Password Strength
If you get the following error at this step, try again, but with a stronger password.
I received this error when using
reallyStrongPwd
as the password (but of course, it's not a really strong password!). I was able to overcome this by adding some numbers to the end. However, if it wasn't just a demo I'd definitely make it stronger than a few dictionary words and numbers.Check the Docker container (optional)
You can type the following command to check that the Docker container is running.
If it's up and running, it should return something like this:
Install sql-cli (unless already installed)
Run the following command to install the sql-cli command line tool. This tool allows you to run queries and other commands against your SQL Server instance.
This assumes you have NodeJs installed. If you don't, download it from Nodejs.org first. Installing NodeJs will automatically install npm which is what we use in this command to install sql-cli.
Permissions Error?
If you get an error, and part of it reads something like
Please try running this command again as root/Administrator
, try again, but this time prependsudo
to your command:Connect to SQL Server
Now that sql-cli is installed, we can start working with SQL Server via the Terminal window on our Mac.
Connect to SQL Server using the
mssql
command, followed by the username and password parameters.You should see something like this:
This means you've successfully connected to your instance of SQL Server.
Run a Quick Test
Run a quick test to check that SQL Server is up and running and you can query it.
For example, you can run the following command to see which version of SQL Server your running:
If it's running, you should see something like this (but of course, this will depend on which version you're running):
If you see a message like this, congratulations — SQL Server is now up and running on your Mac!
A SQL Server GUI for your Mac – Azure Data Studio
Azure Data Studio (formerly SQL Operations Studio) is a free GUI management tool that you can use to manage SQL Server on your Mac. You can use it to create and manage databases, write queries, backup and restore databases, and more.
Azure Data Studio is available on Windows, Mac and Linux.
Here are some articles/tutorials I've written for Azure Data Studio:
Another Free SQL Server GUI – DBeaver
Another SQL Server GUI tool that you can use on your Mac (and Windows/Linux/Solaris) is DBeaver.
DBeaver is a free, open source database management tool that can be used on most database management systems (such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, SQLite, Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, Sybase, Microsoft Access, Teradata, Firebird, Derby, and more).
I wrote a little introduction to DBeaver, or you can go straight to the DBeaver download page and try it out with your new SQL Server installation.
Limitations of SQL Server for Linux/Mac
SQL Server for Linux does have some limitations when compared to the Windows editions (although this could change over time). The Linux release doesn't include many of the extra services that are available in the Windows release, such as Analysis Services, Reporting Services, etc. Here's a list of what's available and what's not on SQL Server 2017 for Linux and here's Microsoft's list of Editions and supported features of SQL Server 2019 on Linux.
Another limitation is that SQL Server Management Studio is not available on Mac or Linux. SSMS a full-blown GUI management for SQL Server, and it provides many more features than Azure Data Studio and DBeaver (at least at the time of writing). You can still use SSMS on a Windows machine to connect to SQL Server on a Linux or Mac machine, but you just can't install it locally on the Linux or Mac machine.
If you need any of the features not supported in SQL Server for Linux, you'll need SQL Server for Windows. Sims 3 world adventures crack 2.0.86. However, you can still run SQL Server for Windows on your Mac by using virtualization software. Here's how to install SQL Server for Windows on a Mac using VirtualBox.
After the release of the first public CTP of SQL Server v.Next for both Windows and Linux, I thought I would share how I set up a coding environment without Windows – Visual Studio Code, running on my Mac, connecting to SQL Server v.Next on Ubuntu, hosted within a Docker container. Business management software by Oracle NetSuite. The cloud-based system to scale with your fast-growing company. Get a free product tour now. SQL Server Management Studio currently runs only on Windows machines, so if you need to work with your SQL Server databases on a.
Just last year I got my first Macbook Pro for development, after a lifetime of Windows (and linux/unix on server environments). I was very excited to get my environment set up as many friends who work in a similar field had sworn by it. I knew that almost every element of my workspace would be easily transferrable to OSX, and in some cases more elegantly. Technologies such as Apache, PHP, ssh/shell, etc are almost more native to the *nix core than they are to windows.
There was however a single piece of the puzzle that I knew I still had to deal with. Microsoft SQL Server. My work use it, personally I woudln't choose it for my own projects at all, I'd choose something less platform dependent. Having said that I actually don't mind the product OTHER than it's requirement to be run on Windows. It is a decent product, it's professionally supported, and most of the clients in my industry use it. In fact not so long ago some may argue that it was one of the best choices for large systems. It was FAR superior to the well known MySQL and a lot more affordable than Oracle. Let's not forget it was originally bought from Sybase (which is probably why the product isn't all that bad! Microsoft didn't create it!)
Sql Server Management Studio 18
So basically I needed to use MS SQL Server. I have a seperate windows box with an SQL Server instance on it, and what I needed was a client program that could connect to the server so I could query it, write SQL, interrogate data etc. I needed the equivalent of Microsofts SQL Management Studio (which used to be called 'Query Analyzer'), or 'MySQL Workbench'.
One option of course was to install VMWare, install Windows, install Microsoft SQL Server and just use Microsofts native client. But I really didn't want to do that. So after much reading & researching I narrowed my options down to a few potential candidates:
So I tried all these products, and here's the problem. They're ugly. They're clunky, awkward and … ugly. Most likely because they're Java based – but they're just hideous. When you get used to an environment like MS SQL Server, you just can't revert back to this kind of rubbish. It's funny you know, when you research this stuff, you see a lot of people recommending these products. And after using them you immediately realise that these people either a) come from an old school linux or java background where everything is ugly and they're used to it, b) they've never worked with large or complicated datasets where EFFICIENCY is of utmost importance and probably consider phpMyAdmin suitable for data wrangling.
But the problem is they're not ok. I'm sorry, they're just not. They're unpolished. There are real annoyances – the forms are hideous. The result set grids will have 10px padding so you can only see about 5 rows of result sets, or the result set grids cells don't automatically resize to the width of the content within the cell (within reason) – they just don't cut it. It's situations like this when you realise the word ‘enterprise' actually does have a meaning beyond just being a buzzword!
Microsoft Sql Server Management Studio
Sql For Mac
I was about to lose hope then all of a sudden, another contender crossed my path:
Transferring a 1GB file took 42 and 34 seconds through a USB and FireWire 400 (using a FireWire 800 to FireWire 400 cable), respectively.
It was beautiful – I was in love. It's a completely professional, sexy, clean, efficient, enterprise grade, high end. powerful SQL interface. It's actually quite close to Microsoft's native client in feel. I got it all hooked up, everything was working well, I even connected over mmy SSH tunnels to remote clients (an article on that later). It was all looking good until I ran into a problem. Running some stored procedures gave an error.
It turns out that SQL Developer is fine with standard SQL like SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE etc, but when running certain SQL Server specific commands, SQL Developer doesn't know how to interpret it, or interprets it correctly. A common problem seems to be the BEGIN and END keywords. It also can't handle multiple resultsets returned from a stored procedure, and won't handle the 'go' command in SQL Server scripts.
So unfortunately in the end I installed Windows XP (for it's light weight), MS SQL Server and just use the native Microsoft SQL Management Studio. Given that my brand new Macbook Pro handles this without struggling it's actually a fairly reasonable solution, but I cross my fingers that one day Oracle SQL Developer is completely compatible, or that someone makes a worthwhile GUI.
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It's worth mentioning that if you do fairly straight forward queries without very large datasets or without complex SQL, some of the above products may well be suitable for you, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have in the comments.
I would like to see it if there was not such a big disconnect between tooling and code samples. Code samples seem to always be pure code that ignores the tooling, though it may work fine or better. Make it looks like. For example: samples showing how MVVM classes and mock/live data can best work with the previewer. Ever since joining Visual Studio as an Intern many years ago, he has focused primarily on improving the productivity of developers buildings apps for various devices and platform, including tools for building Windows apps, XAML, Blend, and our NuGet service.
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Sql Server Studio Mac
Ms Sql Management Studio 2016
Edit (6th Jan 2015): It looks like some developers by the name of Hankinsoft ran into the same issue as many of us and have actually gone ahead and developed an MS SQL Client for Mac to address this very issue. The product is called SQLPro for MSSQL and although I've only recently started using it, I have to say so far it's very impressive. It's polished and pleasing-to-the-eye with it's native Mac App design & feel, but at the same time is fast, responsive, efficient and dedicated to the task. It's described as ‘lightweight' and that's what I love about it – so far, it's handled everything I've thrown at it (including cross database joins etc), but isn't overloaded with unnecessary features/preferences/bloating. So far I definitely recommend it.