Docker compose for SQL Server

2 minutes to read

To use SQL Server Docker compose, we need to create required files and add contents to them.

Dockerfile, a custom docker image
entrypoint.sh
initialize.sh and init-db.sql for initializing a database
docker-compose.yml
.env file

Dockerfile

SQL Server for Linux image does not have built in database initialization like MySQL or Postgres. Therefore, we need to create a custom image.
We use an existing mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2019-CU11-ubuntu-18.04 image as a based image.

Example content of Dockerfile

# Dockerfile
# https://hub.docker.com/_/microsoft-mssql-server
FROM mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2019-latest
EXPOSE 1433
WORKDIR /app
COPY ./entrypoint.sh ./
COPY ./init-db.sql ./
# https://dbafromthecold.com/2019/11/18/using-volumes-in-sql-server-2019-non-root-containers/
USER root
RUN chmod +x ./entrypoint.sh
RUN mkdir -p /var/opt/mssql/data && chown mssql /var/opt/mssql/data
RUN mkdir -p /var/opt/mssql/log && chown mssql /var/opt/mssql/log
RUN mkdir -p /var/opt/mssql/backup && chown mssql /var/opt/mssql/backup
USER mssql
ENTRYPOINT ["./entrypoint.sh"]

entrypoint.sh

entrypoint.sh is any entry point script that will be run when we launch a container

This fill does two things, run init_db local function and start a SQL server instance.

#!/bin/bash
# entrypoint.sh
# Exit immediately if a command exits with a non-zero status.
set -e
# if MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD_FILE is set or has value
# https://stackoverflow.com/a/13864829/1872200
# https://stackoverflow.com/a/16753536/1872200
init_db () {
  INPUT_SQL_FILE="init-db.sql"
  until /opt/mssql-tools/bin/sqlcmd -S localhost,1433 -U sa -P "$MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD" -i $INPUT_SQL_FILE > /dev/null 2>&1
  do
    # echo -e,  use -e to enable interpretation of backslash-escaped characters
    echo -e "\033[31mSQL server is unavailable - sleeping"
    sleep 1 # Sleep for a second....
  done
  echo -e "\033[31mDone initialize a database"
}
# Run init_db and start a SQL Server
init_db & /opt/mssql/bin/sqlservr

init-db.sql

We use init-db.sql to store all SQL statements that will be executed after a SQL server instance is ready.

Example content of init-db.sql:

/* init-db.sql */
CREATE DATABASE [my-db];
USE [my-db];
CREATE TABLE [User] (
  Id INT NOT NULL IDENTITY(1,1),
  FirstName VARCHAR(50) NOT null,
  LastName VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
  DateOfBirth DATETIME NOT NULL
  CONSTRAINT PK_User_Id PRIMARY KEY (Id ASC)
);
INSERT INTO [User] VALUES ('Jose', 'Realman', '2018-01-01');

docker-compose.yml

Example content of docker-compose.yml

# docker-compose.yml
# https://docs.docker.com/compose/compose-file/compose-file-v3/
version: "3.8"
services:
  db:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
    image: ${COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME:?err}-mssql-2019
    container_name: ${COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME:?err}_db
    ports:
      - 1433:1433
    volumes:
      - mssql_data:/var/opt/mssql/data
      - mssql_log:/var/opt/mssql/log
      - mssql_backup:/var/opt/mssql/backup
    # https://docs.docker.com/compose/compose-file/compose-file-v3/#environment
    environment:
      # List of all SQL Server environment variables:
      # https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/linux/sql-server-linux-configure-environment-variables?view=sql-server-ver15#environment-variables
      - ACCEPT_EULA=Y
      - MSSQL_PID=Express
      - MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=12345Abc%
      - MSSQL_DATA_DIR=/var/opt/mssql/data
      - MSSQL_LOG_DIR=/var/opt/mssql/log
      - MSSQL_BACKUP_DIR=/var/opt/mssql/backup
    networks:
      - compose_network
# Create name volumes managed by Docker to not lose data when remove a container.
# https://docs.docker.com/compose/compose-file/compose-file-v3/#volumes
volumes:
  mssql_data:
  mssql_log:
  mssql_backup:
networks:
  compose_network:

We set MSSQL_PID=Express to configure SQL Server to Express edition.

.env file

We can control prefix of our volumes/networks by specific a value of COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME

Example content of .env file

# .env
# https://docs.docker.com/compose/reference/envvars/#compose_project_name
# Explicitly set volume's prefix or use -P with a docker run command.
COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME=sql_server_compose

File structure of our SQL server Docker compose

tree . -a
.
├── .env
├── Dockerfile
├── docker-compose.yml
├── entrypoint.sh
├── init-db.sql

Connect to a database server

Use these values to connect to a database server:
- Host=localhost
- Port=1433 (default port number, you can ignore)
- Database=my-db
- Username=sa
- Password=12345Abc%
.NET connection string value: Server=localhost,1433; Database=my-db; User Id=sa; Password=12345Abc%;

Reference

Optionally, update scripts to support secret

Defined a secret key and set value to a file in a docker-compose.yml file.
Use it in a service.
Set secret path to an MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD_FILE environment variable.
Update entrypoint.sh to use the MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD_FILE variable.

Example code of docker-compose.yml after setting secret:

# docker-compose.yml
# https://docs.docker.com/compose/compose-file/compose-file-v3/
version: "3.8"
services:
  db:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
    image: ${COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME:?err}-mssql-2019
    container_name: ${COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME:?err}_db
    ports:
      - 1433:1433
    volumes:
      - mssql_data:/var/opt/mssql/data
      - mssql_log:/var/opt/mssql/log
      - mssql_backup:/var/opt/mssql/backup
    # https://docs.docker.com/compose/compose-file/compose-file-v3/#environment
    environment:
      # List of all SQL Server environment variables:
      # https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/linux/sql-server-linux-configure-environment-variables?view=sql-server-ver15#environment-variables
      - ACCEPT_EULA=Y
      - MSSQL_PID=Express
      # We don't use MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD here because we will get a password from "MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD_FILE" in entrypoint.sh
      - MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD_FILE=/run/secrets/sa_password
      - MSSQL_DATA_DIR=/var/opt/mssql/data
      - MSSQL_LOG_DIR=/var/opt/mssql/log
      - MSSQL_BACKUP_DIR=/var/opt/mssql/backup
    networks:
      - compose_network
    # Use the defined secret
    secrets:
      - sa_password
# Create name volumes managed by Docker to not lose data when remove a container
# https://docs.docker.com/compose/compose-file/compose-file-v3/#volumes
volumes:
  mssql_data:
  mssql_log:
  mssql_backup:
networks:
  compose_network:
# Define a secret at top level
# External secrets are not available to containers created by docker-compose.
secrets:
  sa_password:
    file: ./sa_password.secret # Add this file in .gitignore to ignore from a repository.

Example code of entrypoint.sh after setting secret:

#!/bin/bash
# entrypoint.sh
# Exit immediately if a command exits with a non-zero status.
set -e
# if MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD_FILE is set or has value
# https://stackoverflow.com/a/13864829/1872200
# https://stackoverflow.com/a/16753536/1872200
if [ ! -z ${MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD_FILE+x} ]
then
  SA_PASSWORD=$(cat ${MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD_FILE})
else
  SA_PASSWORD=${MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD}
fi
init_db () {
  INPUT_SQL_FILE="init-db.sql"
  until /opt/mssql-tools/bin/sqlcmd -S localhost,1433 -U sa -P "$SA_PASSWORD" -i $INPUT_SQL_FILE > /dev/null 2>&1
  do
    echo -e "\033[31mSQL server is unavailable - sleeping"
    sleep 1 # Sleep for a second....
  done
  echo -e "\033[31mDone initialize a database"
}
# Run init_db and start a SQL Server
init_db & /opt/mssql/bin/sqlservr

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