SQL Server administration, once installed and running, doesn’t vary too much based on your operating system, but the differences in the operating systems are pretty significant. To properly administer a production SQL Server on Linux, an administrator needs to understand the core basics of the Linux operating system.

I’m going to limit the scope of these discussions to the currently supported (as of CTP 2.1) operating systems for SQL Server on Linux, namely Red Hat / CentOS, SUSE, and Ubuntu. Most of the images in the screenshots will be from Ubuntu, my preferred distribution of choice, but the core concepts are very similar across all distros. If you’re looking for production systems, you should want to pick a distribution where you can purchase production-grade support.

First, installing Linux is pretty straight forward.  Similar to Windows, an installable image is downloaded, usually in the form of an ISO. Go to their respective web sites, download the ISO image, and follow their installation guides to perform the most minimal installation possible of their distro.

Red Hat Linux installation guide

CentOS Linux installation guide

SUSE Linux installation guide

Ubuntu Linux installation guide

Just do a basic installation with nothing else but an SSH server installed. One of the primary benefits of Linux is that the installable footprint is tiny, keeping the security and maintenance as small as possible. I personally don’t even want a GUI installed, as I’d just use it as a front end for a terminal anyways.

Once installed, now what?

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