How to connect to SQL Server LocalDB using Invoke-Sqlcmd?

Question

I have sqlcmd.exe from both SQLServer 2008 and SQLServer 2012:

PS C:\\> Get-Command sqlcmd.exe

Definition
----------
C:\\Program Files\\Microsof         


        

Answer 1

I have been doing this at work recently and had some initial troubles connecting to a local Database. To get it to work, I ran the following code;

C:\> Import-Module sqlps -DisableNameChecking
SQLSERVER\:> cd ".\SQL\$(hostname)"
SQLSERVER\:> Invoke-Sqlcmd -Username "user" -Password "pass" -Database "databasename" -Query "foobar"

This worked for me and I was able to query the database. Obviously, change the Username, Password and Database parameter details to whatever the name of your database on the SQL Instance is called.

Answer 2

This is code that works for me under adverse conditions (see my comments just after the code). I suspect that simpler code may work in a more common environment, but I haven't dug into it.

The instance pipe times out after a few minutes. You're better off if you can connect using (localdb)\instanceName, because those connections don't seem to time out.

function Get-InstancePipeName ([string] $localDbName)
{
  while (!($pipeName = ((sqllocaldb info $localDbName) -match 'instance pipe name').Split(':', 2)[1].Trim()))
  {
    sqllocaldb start $localDbName | Out-Null
  }
  return $pipeName
}

$scsb   = New-Object System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnectionStringBuilder
$scsb.psbase.DataSource = Get-InstancePipeName localDbName # <== put your db name here
$sc     = New-Object System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection $scsb.ConnectionString

$smoSc  = New-Object Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Common.ServerConnection $sc
$smoSvr = New-Object Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Server $smoSc
Invoke-Sqlcmd -ServerInstance $smoSvr -Query 'select 1'

For reasons currently outside my control, the execution environment where this runs is unusual. It's a remote execution environment with an incomplete session context. Also, I had to redefine USERPROFILE to work around some other issues.

[later edit: I recently found a way to extend the timeout - I had to add a RECONFIGURE after the 2nd sp_configure and (as recommended) stop and start the localdb to get it to take effect)]

Answer 3

Got this from a couple other sources, seems to work so far.

JBs Powershell

and

How can I run PowerShell with the .NET 4 runtime?

Another way of making PowerShell and LocalDB play nice is to make PowerShell aware of DOTNET 4.0.3. This can be done by creating a file called "powershell.exe.config" in the C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0 . The file should contain the following:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration> 
     <startup useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy="true"> 
          <supportedRuntime version="v4.0.30319"/> 
          <supportedRuntime version="v2.0.50727"/> 
     </startup> 
</configuration>

Be aware that this not an officially supported way of using PowerShell, so it might break other stuff ...

Answer 4

I'm guessing that invoke-sqlcmd doesn't know what "(localdb)" is. Try using localhost instead.