Edit

Share via

Restore a SQL Server database in a Linux container

Applies to: SQL Server - Linux

This tutorial demonstrates how to move and restore a SQL Server backup file into a SQL Server 2017 (14.x) Linux container image running on Docker.

This tutorial demonstrates how to move and restore a SQL Server backup file into a SQL Server 2019 (15.x) Linux container image running on Docker.

This tutorial demonstrates how to move and restore a SQL Server backup file into a SQL Server 2022 (16.x) Linux container image running on Docker.

This tutorial demonstrates how to move and restore a SQL Server backup file into a SQL Server 2025 (17.x) Preview Linux container image running on Docker.

  • Pull and run the latest SQL Server Linux container image.
  • Copy the Wide World Importers database file into the container.
  • Restore the database in the container.
  • Run Transact-SQL statements to view and modify the database.
  • Backup the modified database.

Prerequisites

Deployment options

This section provides deployment options for your environment.

sqlcmd doesn't currently support the MSSQL_PID parameter when creating containers. If you use the sqlcmd instructions in this tutorial, you create a container with the Developer edition of SQL Server. Use the command line interface (CLI) instructions to create a container using the license of your choice. For more information, see Deploy and connect to SQL Server Linux containers.

Pull and run the container image

  1. Open a bash terminal on Linux.

  2. Pull the SQL Server 2017 (14.x) Linux container image from the Microsoft Container Registry.

    sudo docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2017-latest

  3. To run the container image with Docker, you can use the following command:

    sudo docker run -e 'ACCEPT_EULA=Y' -e 'MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=<password>' \
   --name 'sql1' -p 1401:1433 \
   -v sql1data:/var/opt/mssql \
   -d mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2017-latest

    Caution

    Your password should follow the SQL Server default password policy. By default, the password must be at least eight characters long and contain characters from three of the following four sets: uppercase letters, lowercase letters, base-10 digits, and symbols. Passwords can be up to 128 characters long. Use passwords that are as long and complex as possible.

    This command creates a SQL Server 2017 (14.x) container with the Developer edition (default). SQL Server port 1433 is exposed on the host as port 1401. The optional -v sql1data:/var/opt/mssql parameter creates a data volume container named sql1data. This is used to persist the data created by SQL Server.

    Important

    This example uses a data volume container within Docker. For more information, see Configure SQL Server container images on Docker.

  4. To view your containers, use the docker ps command.

    sudo docker ps -a

  5. If the STATUS column shows a status of Up, then SQL Server is running in the container and listening on the port specified in the PORTS column. If the STATUS column for your SQL Server container shows Exited, see Troubleshoot SQL Server Docker containers.

$ sudo docker ps -a

CONTAINER ID        IMAGE                          COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                    NAMES
941e1bdf8e1d        mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server/mssql-server-linux   "/bin/sh -c /opt/m..."   About an hour ago   Up About an hour    0.0.0.0:1401->1433/tcp   sql1

  1. Open a bash terminal on Linux.

  2. Pull the SQL Server 2019 (15.x) Linux container image from the Microsoft Container Registry.

    sudo docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2019-latest

  3. To run the container image with Docker, you can use the following command:

    sudo docker run -e 'ACCEPT_EULA=Y' -e 'MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=<password>' \
   --name 'sql1' -p 1401:1433 \
   -v sql1data:/var/opt/mssql \
   -d mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2019-latest

    Caution

    Your password should follow the SQL Server default password policy. By default, the password must be at least eight characters long and contain characters from three of the following four sets: uppercase letters, lowercase letters, base-10 digits, and symbols. Passwords can be up to 128 characters long. Use passwords that are as long and complex as possible.

    This command creates a SQL Server 2019 (15.x) container with the Developer edition (default). SQL Server port 1433 is exposed on the host as port 1401. The optional -v sql1data:/var/opt/mssql parameter creates a data volume container named sql1data. This is used to persist the data created by SQL Server.

    Important

    This example uses a data volume container within Docker. For more information, see Configure SQL Server container images on Docker.

  4. To view your containers, use the docker ps command.

    sudo docker ps -a

  5. If the STATUS column shows a status of Up, then SQL Server is running in the container and listening on the port specified in the PORTS column. If the STATUS column for your SQL Server container shows Exited, see Troubleshoot SQL Server Docker containers.

    $ sudo docker ps -a

CONTAINER ID        IMAGE                          COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                    NAMES
941e1bdf8e1d        mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server/mssql-server-linux   "/bin/sh -c /opt/m..."   About an hour ago   Up About an hour    0.0.0.0:1401->1433/tcp   sql1

  1. Open a bash terminal on Linux.

  2. Pull the SQL Server 2022 (16.x) Linux container image from the Microsoft Container Registry.

    sudo docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest

  3. To run the container image with Docker, you can use the following command:

    sudo docker run -e 'ACCEPT_EULA=Y' -e 'MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=<password>' \
   --name 'sql1' -p 1401:1433 \
   -v sql1data:/var/opt/mssql \
   -d mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest

    Caution

    Your password should follow the SQL Server default password policy. By default, the password must be at least eight characters long and contain characters from three of the following four sets: uppercase letters, lowercase letters, base-10 digits, and symbols. Passwords can be up to 128 characters long. Use passwords that are as long and complex as possible.

    This command creates a SQL Server 2022 (16.x) container with the Developer edition (default). SQL Server port 1433 is exposed on the host as port 1401. The optional -v sql1data:/var/opt/mssql parameter creates a data volume container named sql1data. This is used to persist the data created by SQL Server.

    Important

    This example uses a data volume container within Docker. For more information, see Configure SQL Server container images on Docker.

  4. To view your containers, use the docker ps command.

    sudo docker ps -a

  5. If the STATUS column shows a status of Up, then SQL Server is running in the container and listening on the port specified in the PORTS column. If the STATUS column for your SQL Server container shows Exited, see Troubleshoot SQL Server Docker containers.

    $ sudo docker ps -a

CONTAINER ID        IMAGE                          COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                    NAMES
941e1bdf8e1d        mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server/mssql-server-linux   "/bin/sh -c /opt/m..."   About an hour ago   Up About an hour    0.0.0.0:1401->1433/tcp   sql1

  1. Open a bash terminal on Linux.

  2. Pull the SQL Server 2025 (17.x) Preview Linux container image from the Microsoft Container Registry.

    sudo docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2025-latest

  3. To run the container image with Docker, you can use the following command:

    sudo docker run -e 'ACCEPT_EULA=Y' -e 'MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=<password>' \
   --name 'sql1' -p 1401:1433 \
   -v sql1data:/var/opt/mssql \
   -d mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2025-latest

    Caution

    Your password should follow the SQL Server default password policy. By default, the password must be at least eight characters long and contain characters from three of the following four sets: uppercase letters, lowercase letters, base-10 digits, and symbols. Passwords can be up to 128 characters long. Use passwords that are as long and complex as possible.

    This command creates a SQL Server 2025 (17.x) Preview container with the Developer edition (default). SQL Server port 1433 is exposed on the host as port 1401. The optional -v sql1data:/var/opt/mssql parameter creates a data volume container named sql1data. This is used to persist the data created by SQL Server.

    Important

    This example uses a data volume container within Docker. For more information, see Configure SQL Server container images on Docker.

  4. To view your containers, use the docker ps command.

    sudo docker ps -a

  5. If the STATUS column shows a status of Up, then SQL Server is running in the container and listening on the port specified in the PORTS column. If the STATUS column for your SQL Server container shows Exited, see Troubleshoot SQL Server Docker containers.

    $ sudo docker ps -a

CONTAINER ID        IMAGE                          COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                    NAMES
941e1bdf8e1d        mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server/mssql-server-linux   "/bin/sh -c /opt/m..."   About an hour ago   Up About an hour    0.0.0.0:1401->1433/tcp   sql1

Change the system administrator (SA) password

The sa account is a system administrator on the SQL Server instance that's created during setup. After you create your SQL Server container, the MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD environment variable you specified is discoverable by running echo $MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD in the container. For security purposes, change your sa password:

  1. Choose a strong password to use for the sa account. Your password should follow the SQL Server default password policy. By default, the password must be at least eight characters long and contain characters from three of the following four sets: uppercase letters, lowercase letters, base-10 digits, and symbols. Passwords can be up to 128 characters long. Use passwords that are as long and complex as possible.

  2. Use docker exec to run the sqlcmd utility to change the password through a Transact-SQL statement. Replace <old-password> and <new-password> with your own password values:

    Important

    The SA_PASSWORD environment variable is deprecated. Use MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD instead.

    sudo docker exec -it sql1 /opt/mssql-tools/bin/sqlcmd \
   -S localhost -U sa -P '<old-password>' \
   -Q 'ALTER LOGIN sa WITH PASSWORD="<new-password>"'

    docker exec -it sql1 /opt/mssql-tools/bin/sqlcmd `
   -S localhost -U sa -P "<old-password>" `
   -Q "ALTER LOGIN sa WITH PASSWORD='<new-password>'"

Copy a backup file into the container

This tutorial uses the Wide World Importers sample databases for Microsoft SQL. Use the following steps to download and copy the Wide World Importers database backup file into your SQL Server container.

  1. First, use docker exec to create a backup folder. The following command creates a /var/opt/mssql/backup directory inside the SQL Server container.

    sudo docker exec -it sql1 mkdir /var/opt/mssql/backup

  2. Next, download the WideWorldImporters-Full.bak file to your host machine. The following commands navigate to the home/user directory and downloads the backup file as wwi.bak.

    cd ~
curl -L -o wwi.bak 'https://github.com/Microsoft/sql-server-samples/releases/download/wide-world-importers-v1.0/WideWorldImporters-Full.bak'

  3. Use docker cp to copy the backup file into the container in the /var/opt/mssql/backup directory.

    sudo docker cp wwi.bak sql1:/var/opt/mssql/backup

Restore the database

The backup file is now located inside the container. Before restoring the backup, it's important to know the logical file names and file types inside the backup. The following Transact-SQL commands inspect the backup and perform the restore using sqlcmd in the container.

Tip

This tutorial uses sqlcmd inside the container, because the container comes with this tool preinstalled. However, you can also run Transact-SQL statements with other client tools outside of the container, such as SQL Server extension for Visual Studio Code or Use SQL Server Management Studio on Windows to manage SQL Server on Linux. To connect, use the host port that was mapped to port 1433 in the container. In this example, the host and port are localhost,1401 on the host machine, and Host_IP_Address,1401 remotely.

  1. Run sqlcmd inside the container to list out logical file names and paths inside the backup. This is done with the RESTORE FILELISTONLY Transact-SQL statement.

    sudo docker exec -it sql1 /opt/mssql-tools18/bin/sqlcmd -S localhost \
   -U sa -P '<new-password>' \
   -Q 'RESTORE FILELISTONLY FROM DISK = "/var/opt/mssql/backup/wwi.bak"' \
   | tr -s ' ' | cut -d ' ' -f 1-2

    The results should look similar to the following output:

    LogicalName   PhysicalName
------------------------------------------
WWI_Primary   D:\Data\WideWorldImporters.mdf
WWI_UserData   D:\Data\WideWorldImporters_UserData.ndf
WWI_Log   E:\Log\WideWorldImporters.ldf
WWI_InMemory_Data_1   D:\Data\WideWorldImporters_InMemory_Data_1

  2. Call the RESTORE DATABASE command to restore the database inside the container. Specify new paths for each of the files in the previous step.

    sudo docker exec -it sql1 /opt/mssql-tools18/bin/sqlcmd \
   -S localhost -U sa -P '<new-password>' \
   -Q 'RESTORE DATABASE WideWorldImporters FROM DISK = "/var/opt/mssql/backup/wwi.bak" WITH MOVE "WWI_Primary" TO "/var/opt/mssql/data/WideWorldImporters.mdf", MOVE "WWI_UserData" TO "/var/opt/mssql/data/WideWorldImporters_userdata.ndf", MOVE "WWI_Log" TO "/var/opt/mssql/data/WideWorldImporters.ldf", MOVE "WWI_InMemory_Data_1" TO "/var/opt/mssql/data/WideWorldImporters_InMemory_Data_1"'

    The results should look similar to the following output:

    Processed 1464 pages for database 'WideWorldImporters', file 'WWI_Primary' on file 1.
Processed 53096 pages for database 'WideWorldImporters', file 'WWI_UserData' on file 1.
Processed 33 pages for database 'WideWorldImporters', file 'WWI_Log' on file 1.
Processed 3862 pages for database 'WideWorldImporters', file 'WWI_InMemory_Data_1' on file 1.
Converting database 'WideWorldImporters' from version 852 to the current version 869.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 852 to version 853.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 853 to version 854.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 854 to version 855.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 855 to version 856.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 856 to version 857.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 857 to version 858.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 858 to version 859.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 859 to version 860.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 860 to version 861.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 861 to version 862.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 862 to version 863.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 863 to version 864.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 864 to version 865.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 865 to version 866.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 866 to version 867.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 867 to version 868.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 868 to version 869.
RESTORE DATABASE successfully processed 58455 pages in 18.069 seconds (25.273 MB/sec).

Verify the restored database

Run the following query to display a list of database names in your container:

sudo docker exec -it sql1 /opt/mssql-tools18/bin/sqlcmd \
   -S localhost -U sa -P '<new-password>' \
   -Q 'SELECT name FROM sys.databases'

You should see WideWorldImporters in the list of databases.

Make a change

Follow these steps to make a change in the database.

  1. Run a query to view the top 10 items in the Warehouse.StockItems table.

    sudo docker exec -it sql1 /opt/mssql-tools18/bin/sqlcmd \
   -S localhost -U sa -P '<new-password>' \
   -Q 'SELECT TOP 10 StockItemID, StockItemName FROM WideWorldImporters.Warehouse.StockItems ORDER BY StockItemID'

    You should see a list of item identifiers and names:

    StockItemID StockItemName
----------- -----------------
          1 USB missile launcher (Green)
          2 USB rocket launcher (Gray)
          3 Office cube periscope (Black)
          4 USB food flash drive - sushi roll
          5 USB food flash drive - hamburger
          6 USB food flash drive - hot dog
          7 USB food flash drive - pizza slice
          8 USB food flash drive - dim sum 10 drive variety pack
          9 USB food flash drive - banana
         10 USB food flash drive - chocolate bar

  2. Update the description of the first item with the following UPDATE statement:

    sudo docker exec -it sql1 /opt/mssql-tools18/bin/sqlcmd \
   -S localhost -U sa -P '<new-password>' \
   -Q 'UPDATE WideWorldImporters.Warehouse.StockItems SET StockItemName="USB missile launcher (Dark Green)" WHERE StockItemID=1; SELECT StockItemID, StockItemName FROM WideWorldImporters.Warehouse.StockItems WHERE StockItemID=1'

    You should see an output similar to the following text:

    (1 rows affected)
StockItemID StockItemName
----------- ------------------------------------
          1 USB missile launcher (Dark Green)

Create a new backup

After you restore your database into a container, you might also want to regularly create database backups inside the running container. The steps follow a similar pattern to the previous steps but in reverse.

  1. Use the BACKUP DATABASE Transact-SQL command to create a database backup in the container. This tutorial creates a new backup file, wwi_2.bak, in the previously created /var/opt/mssql/backup directory.

    sudo docker exec -it sql1 /opt/mssql-tools18/bin/sqlcmd \
   -S localhost -U sa -P '<new-password>' \
   -Q "BACKUP DATABASE [WideWorldImporters] TO DISK = N'/var/opt/mssql/backup/wwi_2.bak' WITH NOFORMAT, NOINIT, NAME = 'WideWorldImporters-full', SKIP, NOREWIND, NOUNLOAD, STATS = 10"

    The results should look similar to the following output:

    10 percent processed.
20 percent processed.
30 percent processed.
40 percent processed.
50 percent processed.
60 percent processed.
70 percent processed.
Processed 1200 pages for database 'WideWorldImporters', file 'WWI_Primary' on file 1.
Processed 53096 pages for database 'WideWorldImporters', file 'WWI_UserData' on file 1.
80 percent processed.
Processed 3865 pages for database 'WideWorldImporters', file 'WWI_InMemory_Data_1' on file 1.
Processed 938 pages for database 'WideWorldImporters', file 'WWI_Log' on file 1.
100 percent processed.
BACKUP DATABASE successfully processed 59099 pages in 25.056 seconds (18.427 MB/sec).

  2. Next, copy the backup file out of the container and onto your host machine.

    cd ~
sudo docker cp sql1:/var/opt/mssql/backup/wwi_2.bak wwi_2.bak
ls -l wwi*

Use the persisted data

In addition to taking database backups for protecting your data, you can also use data volume containers. The beginning of this tutorial created the sql1 container with the -v sql1data:/var/opt/mssql parameter. The sql1data data volume container persists the /var/opt/mssql data even after the container is removed. The following steps completely remove the sql1 container and then create a new container, sql2, with the persisted data.

  1. Stop the sql1 container.

    sudo docker stop sql1

  2. Remove the container. This doesn't delete the previously created sql1data data volume container and the persisted data in it.

    sudo docker rm sql1

  3. Create a new container, sql2, and reuse the sql1data data volume container.

    sudo docker run -e 'ACCEPT_EULA=Y' -e 'MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=<password>' \
   --name 'sql2' -e 'MSSQL_PID=Developer' -p 1401:1433 \
   -v sql1data:/var/opt/mssql -d mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2017-latest

  4. The Wide World Importers database is now in the new container. Run a query to verify the previous change you made.

    sudo docker exec -it sql2 /opt/mssql-tools/bin/sqlcmd \
   -S localhost -U sa -P '<new-password>' \
   -Q 'SELECT StockItemID, StockItemName FROM WideWorldImporters.Warehouse.StockItems WHERE StockItemID=1'

    The sa password isn't the password you specified for the sql2 container, MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=<password>. All of the SQL Server data was restored from sql1, including the changed password from earlier in the tutorial. In effect, some options like this are ignored due to restoring the data in /var/opt/mssql. For this reason, the password is <new-password> as shown here.

  1. Stop the sql1 container.

    sudo docker stop sql1

  2. Remove the container. This doesn't delete the previously created sql1data data volume container and the persisted data in it.

    sudo docker rm sql1

  3. Create a new container, sql2, and reuse the sql1data data volume container.

    sudo docker run -e 'ACCEPT_EULA=Y' -e 'MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=<password>' \
   --name 'sql2' -e 'MSSQL_PID=Developer' -p 1401:1433 \
   -v sql1data:/var/opt/mssql -d mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2019-latest

  4. The Wide World Importers database is now in the new container. Run a query to verify the previous change you made.

    sudo docker exec -it sql2 /opt/mssql-tools18/bin/sqlcmd \
   -S localhost -U sa -P '<new-password>' \
   -Q 'SELECT StockItemID, StockItemName FROM WideWorldImporters.Warehouse.StockItems WHERE StockItemID=1'

    The sa password isn't the password you specified for the sql2 container, MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=<password>. All of the SQL Server data was restored from sql1, including the changed password from earlier in the tutorial. In effect, some options like this are ignored due to restoring the data in /var/opt/mssql. For this reason, the password is <new-password> as shown here.

  1. Stop the sql1 container.

    sudo docker stop sql1

  2. Remove the container. This doesn't delete the previously created sql1data data volume container and the persisted data in it.

    sudo docker rm sql1

  3. Create a new container, sql2, and reuse the sql1data data volume container.

    sudo docker run -e 'ACCEPT_EULA=Y' -e 'MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=<password>' \
   --name 'sql2' -e 'MSSQL_PID=Developer' -p 1401:1433 \
   -v sql1data:/var/opt/mssql -d mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest

  4. The Wide World Importers database is now in the new container. Run a query to verify the previous change you made.

    sudo docker exec -it sql2 /opt/mssql-tools18/bin/sqlcmd \
   -S localhost -U sa -P '<new-password>' \
   -Q 'SELECT StockItemID, StockItemName FROM WideWorldImporters.Warehouse.StockItems WHERE StockItemID=1'

    The sa password isn't the password you specified for the sql2 container, MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=<password>. All of the SQL Server data was restored from sql1, including the changed password from earlier in the tutorial. In effect, some options like this are ignored due to restoring the data in /var/opt/mssql. For this reason, the password is <new-password> as shown here.

  1. Stop the sql1 container.

    sudo docker stop sql1

  2. Remove the container. This doesn't delete the previously created sql1data data volume container and the persisted data in it.

    sudo docker rm sql1

  3. Create a new container, sql2, and reuse the sql1data data volume container.

    sudo docker run -e 'ACCEPT_EULA=Y' -e 'MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=<password>' \
   --name 'sql2' -e 'MSSQL_PID=Developer' -p 1401:1433 \
   -v sql1data:/var/opt/mssql -d mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2025-latest

  4. The Wide World Importers database is now in the new container. Run a query to verify the previous change you made.

    sudo docker exec -it sql2 /opt/mssql-tools18/bin/sqlcmd \
   -S localhost -U sa -P '<new-password>' \
   -Q 'SELECT StockItemID, StockItemName FROM WideWorldImporters.Warehouse.StockItems WHERE StockItemID=1'

    The sa password isn't the password you specified for the sql2 container, MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=<password>. All of the SQL Server data was restored from sql1, including the changed password from earlier in the tutorial. In effect, some options like this are ignored due to restoring the data in /var/opt/mssql. For this reason, the password is <new-password> as shown here.

Caution

Your password should follow the SQL Server default password policy. By default, the password must be at least eight characters long and contain characters from three of the following four sets: uppercase letters, lowercase letters, base-10 digits, and symbols. Passwords can be up to 128 characters long. Use passwords that are as long and complex as possible.

Next step

In this tutorial, you learned how to back up a database on Windows and move it to a Linux server running SQL Server 2017 (14.x) in a container. You learned how to:

In this tutorial, you learned how to back up a database on Windows and move it to a Linux server running SQL Server 2019 (15.x) in a container. You learned how to:

In this tutorial, you learned how to back up a database on Windows and move it to a Linux server running SQL Server 2022 (16.x) in a container. You learned how to:

In this tutorial, you learned how to back up a database on Windows and move it to a Linux server running SQL Server 2025 (17.x) Preview in a container. You learned how to:

  • Create SQL Server Linux container images.
  • Copy SQL Server database backups into a container.
  • Run Transact-SQL statements with sqlcmd.
  • Create and extract backup files from a container.
  • Use data volume containers to persist SQL Server production data.

Next, review other container configuration and troubleshooting scenarios:

Deploy and connect to SQL Server Linux containers

Contribute to SQL documentation

Did you know that you can edit SQL content yourself? If you do so, not only do you help improve our documentation, but you also get credited as a contributor to the page.

For more information, see Edit Microsoft Learn documentation.