Backing up SQL Server on Linux using Ola Hallengrens Maintenance Solution

With the release of SQL Server vNext CTP 1.4 SQL Agent was released for use on Linux. To install it on Ubuntu you need to upgrade your SQL Server to CTP 1.4. On Ubuntu you do this with

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mssql-server

Once you have CTP 1.4 you can install SQL Agent as follows

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mssql-server-agent
sudo systemctl restart mssql-server

for different flavours of Linux follow the steps here

Once you have done that you will see that the Agent is now available

01 - SSMS Agent Linux.PNG

So now I can schedule backups and maintenance for my Linux SQL databases using the agent. I immediately turned to Ola Hallengrens Maintenance Solution I downloaded the SQL file and ran it against my Linux server once I had changed the path for the backups to a directory I had created at /var/opt/mssql/backups notice that it is specified using Windows notation with C:\ at the root

SET @CreateJobs= 'Y' -- Specify whether jobs should be created. 
SET @BackupDirectory = N'C:\var\opt\mssql\backups' -- Specify the backup root directory. 
SET @CleanupTime = 350 -- Time in hours, after which backup files are deleted. If no time is specified, then no backup files are deleted. 
SET @OutputFileDirectory = NULL -- Specify the output file directory. If no directory is specified, then the SQL Server error log directory is used. 
SET @LogToTable = 'Y' -- Log commands to a table.

The stored procedures were created

03 - stored procedures

and the jobs were created

04 - jobs.PNG

Now the jobs are not going to run as they are as they have CmdExec steps and this is not supported in SQL on Linux so we have to make some changes to the steps. As I blogged previously, this is really easy using PowerShell

First we need to grab the jobs into a variable. We will use Get-SQLAgentJobHistory from the sqlserver module which you need to download SSMS 2016 or later to get. You can get it from https://sqlps.io/dl As we are targeting a Linux SQL Server we will use SQL authentication which we will provide via Get-Credential and then take a look at the jobs

Import-Module sqlserver
$cred = Get-Credential
$Jobs = Get-SqlAgentJob -ServerInstance LinuxvVNext -Credential $cred
$jobs |ft -auto
05 Powershell jobs.PNG

Once the jobs were in the variable I decided to filter out only the jobs that are calling the stored procedures to perform the backups, DBCC and Index optimisation and loop through them first. Backups are the most important after all

## Find the jobs we want to change foreach($Job in $jobs.Where{$_.Name -like '*DATABASES*'})

Then it is simply a case of replacing the sqlcmd text in the command to return it to T-SQL, adding the database name (I installed Ola’s stored procedures into the master database and changing the subsystem to use T-SQL instead of CmdExec

## replace the text as required
$job.jobsteps[0].command = $job.jobsteps[0].command.Replace('sqlcmd -E -S $(ESCAPE_SQUOTE(SRVR)) -d master -Q "' , '').Replace('" -b','')
## Change the subsystem
$job.jobsteps[0].subsystem = 'TransactSQL'
## Add the databasename
$job.jobsteps[0].DatabaseName = 'master'
## Alter the jobstep
$job.jobsteps[0].Alter()

We can check that it has done this using PowerShell

$Jobs = Get-SqlAgentJob -ServerInstance LinuxvVNext -Credential $cred
foreach ($Job in $jobs.Where{$_.Name -like '*DATABASES*'}) {
    foreach ($step in $Job.JobSteps) {
        $step | Select Parent, Name, Command, DatabaseName, Subsystem
    }
}
06 - Jobs changed.PNG

or by looking in SSMS if you prefer

07 - jobs changed ssms.PNG

Now lets run the jobs and check the history using Get-SqlAgentJobHistory

Get-SqlAgentJobHistory -ServerInstance linuxvnextctp14 -Credential $cred | select RunDate,StepID,Server,JobName,StepName,Message|Out-GridView
08 - ogv for jobs.PNG

Which pretty much matches what you see in SSMS

09 - ssms jobs view.PNG

and if you look in the directory you see the files exactly as you would expect them to be

10 - Files in Linux

We still need to change the other jobs that Ola’s script create. If we look at the command steps

 

11 - job comands.PNG

We can see that the CommandLog Cleanup job can use the same PowerShell code as the backup jobs, the sp_delete_backuphistory and sp_purgejobhistory jobs need to refer to the msdb database instead of master. For the moment the Output File Cleanup job is the one that is not able to be run on Linux. Hopefully soon we will be able to run PowerShell job steps and that will be resolved as well

Here is the full snippet of code to change all of the jobs

$server = 'Linuxvnextctp14'
$cred = Get-Credential
$Jobs = Get-SqlAgentJob -ServerInstance $server -Credential $cred
## Find the jobs we want to change
foreach ($Job in $jobs) {
    if ($Job.Name -like '*DATABASES*' -or $Job.Name -like '*CommandLog*') {
        ## replace the text as required
        $job.jobsteps[0].command = $job.jobsteps[0].command.Replace('sqlcmd -E -S $(ESCAPE_SQUOTE(SRVR)) -d master -Q "' , '').Replace('" -b', '')
        ## Change the subsystem
        $job.jobsteps[0].subsystem = 'TransactSQL'
        ## Add the databasename
        $job.jobsteps[0].DatabaseName = 'master'
        ## Alter the jobstep
        $job.jobsteps[0].Alter()
    }
    if ($Job.Name -like '*history*') {
        ## replace the text as required
        $job.jobsteps[0].command = $job.jobsteps[0].command.Replace('sqlcmd -E -S $(ESCAPE_SQUOTE(SRVR)) -d msdb -Q "' , '').Replace('" -b', '')
        ## Change the subsystem
        $job.jobsteps[0].subsystem = 'TransactSQL'
        ## Add the databasename
        $job.jobsteps[0].DatabaseName = 'msdb'
        ## Alter the jobstep
        $job.jobsteps[0].Alter()
    }
}
 Happy Automating

SQL VNext sp_configure on Windows and Linux with dbatools

This weekend I set up some SQL vNext virtual machines, two on Windows and one on Linux so that I could test some scenarios and build an availability group.

IMPORTANT NOTE :- The names of dbatools commands with a Sql prefix WILL CHANGE in a later release of dbatools. dbatools will use Dba throughout in the future as the sqlserver PowerShell module uses the Sql prefix

I used PowerShell version 5.1.14393.693 and SQL Server vNext CTP 1.3 running on Windows Server 2016 and Ubuntu 16.04 in this blog post

I set up one Windows box with some changes to the default configuration, these are for my lab only.

Min Server Memory to 2Gb
Max Server Memory to 6Gb
Remote Admin Connections to 1
Backup Compression to 1
Ad Hoc Distributed Queries to 1

I can do this in PowerShell by creating a SQL SMO Server object using Connect-DbaSqlServer from dbatools and then altering the Configuration Properties values and calling the Alter() method

$WinSQl1 = 'SQLvNextN1'
$win1 = Connect-DbaSqlServer -SqlServer $WinSQl1
$win1.Configuration.Properties['DefaultBackupCompression'].ConfigValue = 1
$win1.Configuration.Properties['MinServerMemory'].ConfigValue = 2048
$win1.Configuration.Properties['MaxServerMemory'].ConfigValue = 6144
$win1.Configuration.Properties['RemoteAccess'].ConfigValue = 1
$win1.Configuration.Properties['OptimizeAdhocWorkloads'].ConfigValue = 1
$win1.Configuration.Alter()

I can see the change by using the Get-DbaSpConfigure from the popular PowerShell module dbatools. I like to output to Out-GridView (Alias ogv at the CLI)

$WinSQl1 = 'SQLvNextN1'
Get-DbaSpConfigure -SqlServer $WinSQl1 | ogv

1 SPConfig ogv.PNG

Out-GridView can filter in the top bar and it works very quickly. It is a very useful tool

2 - ogv filter.gif

You can also rearrange the columns and use the Add Criteria button to filter your results

3-spconfig-ogv

You can use Export-SQLSpConfigure to export the configuration to a .sql file which is useful for DR or documentation purposes. There is also a corresponding Import-SqlSpConfigure command

$WinSQl1 = 'SQLvNextN1'
$WinConfigPath = 'C:\Temp\Winconfig.sql'
Export-SqlSpConfigure -SqlServer $WinSQl1 -Path $winConfigPath
notepad $winConfigPath

4 - Export-SQLSpConfigure.gif

Chrissy LeMaire b | t showed a neat trick when we were in Utrecht to compare the configuration of two servers

$WinSQl1 = 'SQLvNextN1'
$WinSQl2 = 'SQLvNextN2'
$Win1SPConfigure = Get-DbaSpConfigure -SqlServer $WinSQl1
$Win2SPConfigure = Get-DbaSpConfigure -SqlServer $WinSQl2
$propcompare = foreach ($prop in $Win1SPConfigure) {
[pscustomobject]@{
Config = $prop.DisplayName
'Windows Node1 setting' = $prop.RunningValue
'Windows Node2 Setting' = $Win2SPConfigure | Where DisplayName -eq $prop.DisplayName | Select -ExpandProperty RunningValue
}
}
$propcompare | ogv
So when we compare the two Windows SQL nodes we can see that at this point there are differences in the configuration
5-compare-configures

 

Now we can copy the configuration from SQLvNextN1 to SQLvNextN2 using the Copy-SqlSpConfigure command

$WinSQl1 = 'SQLvNextN1'
$WinSQl2 = 'SQLvNextN2'
Copy-SqlSpConfigure -Source $WinSQl1 -Destination $WinSQl2

6 - Copy Configurations.gif

and we can see that those configurations are now the same for those two servers by comparing them like before.

7 - compare configurations.PNG

We can use Get-DbaSpConfigure with Linux servers as well but we need to use SQL authentication like so (No, I don’t know why I used two v’s!)

$linuxSQL = 'LinuxvvNext'
$cred = Get-Credential -UserName SA -Message "Linux SQL Auth"
$linuxSpConfigure = Get-DbaSpConfigure  -SqlServer $linuxSQL -SqlCredential $cred
$linuxSpConfigure | ogv

and compare the three servers like so

$WinSQl1 = 'SQLvNextN1'
$WinSQl2 = 'SQLvNextN2'
$linuxSQL = 'LinuxvvNext'
$cred = Get-Credential -UserName SA -Message "Linux SQL Auth"
<div>$Win1SPConfigure = Get-DbaSpConfigure -SqlServer $WinSQl1
$Win2SPConfigure = Get-DbaSpConfigure -SqlServer $WinSQl2
$linuxSpConfigure = Get-DbaSpConfigure  -SqlServer $linuxSQL -SqlCredential $cred
$propcompare = foreach ($prop in $Win1SPConfigure) {
[pscustomobject]@{
Config = $prop.DisplayName
'Windows Node1 setting' = $prop.RunningValue
'Windows Node2 Setting' = $Win2SPConfigure | Where DisplayName -eq $prop.DisplayName | Select -ExpandProperty RunningValue
'Linux Setting' = $linuxSpConfigure | Where DisplayName -eq $prop.DisplayName | Select -ExpandProperty RunningValue
}
}
$propcompare | ogv

and see the differences for the Linux Server

8 - Compare Linux Configs.PNG

we can export the Linux configuration using Export-SqlSpConfigure

9 - Export Linux Config.PNG

So now lets copy the configuration changes from the Windows Server to the Linux Server

10 - Copy Configuration to Linux.gif

There was some Red text there you will notice. This is because there are unsupported features in Linux as you can see in the SQL Server on Linux Release Notes The errors from the command are

Database Mail XPs to 0. Feature may not be supported.
SMO and DMO XPs to 1. Feature may not be supported.
Ole Automation Procedures to 0. Feature may not be supported.
xp_cmdshell to 0. Feature may not be supported.
Ad Hoc Distributed Queries to 0. Feature may not be supported.
Replication XPs to 0. Feature may not be supported.
contained database authentication to 0. Feature may not be supported.
hadoop connectivity to 0. Feature may not be supported.
polybase network encryption to 1. Feature may not be supported.
remote data archive to 0. Feature may not be supported.
allow polybase export to 0. Feature may not be supported.

But if we compare the configurations again, we can see that the settings we wanted have been altered successfully

11 - Compare Linux Configs again.PNG

Lets reset the configuration on the Linux server using Import-SqlSpConfigure and the Linuxconfig-backup.sql file created before any changes

12 - Import backup Linux configuration.gif

Interestingly this time we only had an error for Database Mail XPs, but as you can see below the Linux Configuration has been reset back to the original values.

13-configuration-comapre-back-to-original

Lets export the configuration from the Windows server to a file and import it onto the Linux server to see what happens

14 - Import Windows configuration to Linux.gif

Again only an error for Database Mail XPs, and we can see the configurations are again matching.

15 - Final Compare.PNG

Hopefully, this post has been of use in exploring the *SpConfigure* commands in dbatools and how you can use them to get the sp_configure output, compare it between servers, Export and import it to and from files, as well as copy it between servers for both Windows and Linux. Remember these commands have been tested from SQL 2000 to SQL vNext so they should work for you across your estate

 

Happy Automating!