Microsoft SQL Server Client 2017 on Debian 9

As is a way to install the server of Microsoft SQL Server 2017, we can install the client called sqlcmd, a command line tool, as a part of mssql-tools on Debian.

The installation is simple:

$ curl https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/16.04/prod.list | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/msprod.list
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install mssql-tools

That's all.
Then it is available:

$ /opt/mssql-tools/bin/sqlcmd

Of course, you can add /opt/mssql-tools/bin to your PATH environment variable.

The usage is like this:

$ /opt/mssql-tools/bin/sqlcmd
Microsoft (R) SQL Server Command Line Tool
Version 17.3.0000.1 Linux
Copyright (c) 2012 Microsoft. All rights reserved.

usage: sqlcmd            [-U login id]          [-P password]
  [-S server or Dsn if -D is provided] 
  [-H hostname]          [-E trusted connection]
  [-N Encrypt Connection][-C Trust Server Certificate]
  [-d use database name] [-l login timeout]     [-t query timeout]
  [-h headers]           [-s colseparator]      [-w screen width]
  [-a packetsize]        [-e echo input]        [-I Enable Quoted Identifiers]
  [-c cmdend]
  [-q "cmdline query"]   [-Q "cmdline query" and exit]
  [-m errorlevel]        [-V severitylevel]     [-W remove trailing spaces]
  [-u unicode output]    [-r[0|1] msgs to stderr]
  [-i inputfile]         [-o outputfile]
  [-k[1|2] remove[replace] control characters]
  [-y variable length type display width]
  [-Y fixed length type display width]
  [-p[1] print statistics[colon format]]
  [-R use client regional setting]
  [-K application intent]
  [-M multisubnet failover]
  [-b On error batch abort]
  [-D Dsn flag, indicate -S is Dsn] 
  [-X[1] disable commands, startup script, environment variables [and exit]]
  [-x disable variable substitution]
  [-? show syntax summary]

For example, you can execute a SQL file this way:

$ /opt/mssql-tools/bin/sqlcmd -H <db-host> -d <database> -U <db-user> -i ./xxx.sql
$ # You will be asked about <db-password>.

If your locale is NOT English, check it before running.

Thank you for your reading :)
Happy computing.