What are some ways of accessing Microsoft SQL Server from Linux?

Question

We have a Windows machine running SQL Server 2005, and we need to be able to run some database queries on it from a Linux box. What are some of the recommended ways of doin

Answer 1

sqsh (http://www.sqsh.org/) + freetds (http://www.freetds.org)

sqsh was primarily an isql replacement for Sybase SQL Server (now ASE) but it works just fine for connecting to SQL Server (provided you use freetds).

To compile, simply point $SYBASE to freetds install and it should work from there. I use it on my Mac all day.

The best part of sqsh are the advanced features, such as dead simple server linking (no need to set up linked servers in SQL Server), flow control and looping (no more concatenating strings and executing dynamic SQL), and invisible bulk copy/load.

Anyone who uses any other command line tool is simply crazy! :)

Answer 2

FreeTDS + unixODBC or iODBC

Install first FreeTDS, then configure one of the two ODBC engines to use FreeTDS as its ODBC driver. Then use the commandline interface of the ODBC engine.

unixODBC has isql, iODBC has iodbctest

You can also use your favorite programming language (I've successfully used Perl, C, Python and Ruby to connect to MSSQL)

I'm personally using FreeTDS + iODBC:

$more /etc/freetds/freetds.conf
[10.0.1.251]
    host = 10.0.1.251
    port = 1433
    tds version = 8.0

$ more /etc/odbc.ini
[ACCT]
Driver = /usr/local/freetds/lib/libtdsodbc.so
Description = ODBC to SQLServer via FreeTDS
Trace = No
Servername = 10.0.1.251
Database = accounts_ver8

Answer 3

If you are using Java, have a look at JDBC.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms378672(SQL.90).aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jdbc

Answer 4

There is a nice CLI based tool for accessing MSSQL databases now.

It's called mssql-cli and it's a bit similar to postgres' psql.

Gihub repository page

Install for example via pip (global installation, for a local one omit the sudo part):

sudo pip install mssql-cli

Answer 5

I'd like to recommend Sqlectron. Besides being open source under MIT license it's multiplatform boosted by Electron. Its own definition is:

A simple and lightweight SQL client desktop with cross database and platform support

It currently supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, MS SQL Server, Cassandra and SQLite.

Answer 6

Mono contains an ADO.NET provider that should do this for you. I don't know if there is a command line utility for it, but you could definitely wrap up some C# to do the queries if there isn't.

Have a look at http://www.mono-project.com/TDS_Providers and http://www.mono-project.com/SQLClient