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Now That We’ve Got a Cumulative Update…Updating SQL Server on Linux

A few weeks’ ago I blogged about installing SQL Server 2022 on Linux. It just so happens to be that Cumulative Update 8 for SQL Server 2022 came out this week. This gives us the perfect opportunity to talk about applying those all important CUs to the SQL Server we built a couple of weeks back.

As discussed applying SQL Server Cumulative Updates on Linux works differently to Windows. On Windows you generally either get CUs by manually downloading the update via Microsoft’s KB on that particular update or accidentally let one install via Windows update if there’s a security fix. On Linux you generally get updates via the repositories you have configured for your server.

Applying Cumulative Updates for SQL Server (of any supported version) ensures that you have the latest fixes for the SQL Server platform. Each update is certified to the same degree as a service pack used to be and Microsoft generally recommends you keep up to date with their installation. That being said you still should test carefully in UAT before applying to a live system.

The first thing you need to do of course is backup your SQL Server. Something could go wrong so you must make sure you have a rollback plan in case that does happen. This could be: taking a snapshot of the server’s VM in your hypervisor, performing a full backup of all the system and user databases, initiating a full server backup using your favourite backup agent or something completely different.

Once you have a test plan in place which has been approved plus your backups you are now ready to install the latest Cumulative Update.

Step 1: Check to see if you’ve got the correct apt source in your repos:

sudo apt edit-sources

You will then get a 1-4 choice for which editor you want to use. I chose nano which is option #1. At which point you’ll see nano appear. Scroll right down and find your sources.

If you don’t see Microsoft’s sources for SQL Server in there it’s not all bad news as Microsoft have made a guide on how to resolve that problem.

Once you are done reviewing the sources list press CTRL + X to close nano.

Step 2: Run apt update to fetch the current package list from the repositories:

sudo apt-get update

This takes a few minutes and for my server resulted in a 14 MB download. This command is vital to ensure that the next command runs properly otherwise you’ll be using an outdated package list.

Step 3: Perform an upgrade of msssql-server using apt:

--To update everything on the system at once
sudo apt-get upgrade 

--To do MS SQL Server only
sudo apt-get upgrade mssql-server

This will then list out all the packages that need upgrading based on what’s installed to your Server vs what’s available in the repository. If you decided to upgrade everything one of those packages should be…yes you guessed it…mssql-server. Cumulative Update 8 is approximately 268 MB to download:

You are of course going to answer ‘Y’ to this question. Or press enter (note that the “Y” is capitalised. This means that it’s the default answer if you smack return).

This will then run through all the updates to go through. Highlighted here is apt setting up the mssql-server package version 16.0.4075.1-1 which is indeed Cumulative Update 8.

Step 4: Verify the mssql-server service is alive:

systemctl status mssql-server --no-pager

As you can see we’re onto a winner:

At this point it’s also probably a good idea to open SQL Server Management Studio or Azure Data Studio to check you have a working connection. To double check you have Cumulative Update 8 you could also execute the following command in whatever SQL query tool you are using:

SELECT @@VERSION AS VersionString
Microsoft SQL Server 2022 (RTM-CU8) (KB5029666) - 16.0.4075.1 (X64)  	Aug 23 2023 14:04:50  	Copyright (C) 2022 Microsoft Corporation 	Developer Edition (64-bit) on Linux (Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS) <X64>

At this point you should start performing your acceptance tests on your databases and applications. Aim to verify that the usual business and system processes are working before declaring a success!

But What If I Wanted A Specific Version of SQL Server?

Whilst it’s usually recommended that a new SQL Server instance should go through a UAT phase with whatever application(s) will be running against it using the latest CU available at the time. However there could be situations where a specific version of SQL Server is required. Whatever that reason in order to do this run the following commands:

sudo apt-get install mssql-server=<version_number>
sudo systemctl start mssql-server

Where <version_number> is the version string you need. For example Cumulative Update 7 is 16.0.4065.3-4. To find the version number you need consult the release notes for SQL Server 2022 on Linux.

WFH…Is It Over?

This week video conferencing specialists Zoom announced that they expect employees back in the office at least for some of the week. At least if you are working within “commutable distance” of their offices.

It’s not just a Zoom – which strangely was the weapon of choice when we were all sent home for the COVID-19 pandemic – but also the likes of Amazon have decided that they will track and penalise employees working from home too much. And it’s not just them either. Over the past year the likes of BT Group, Apple and Twitter/X have also decided on some form of return to work. 

So what’s the big fuss? 

Work from home was a necessity during the pandemic for obvious reasons but now that’s in some kind of endemic phase it’s not really a barrier to bringing people back to the office any more. Top level management are seemingly intent on using that office space they’ve spent the cash on to reap the benefits of bringing teams back together. Or so the theory goes right?

I read different articles and different studies on the effect from working from home. Some in favour, some against. Personally I think it’s very much down to the individual and their circumstances. I do work from home but I don’t really like doing it as I feel there should be a separation of work and home space but also interacting with people face-to-face is critical important. I do live alone so that’s a big reason for the aforementioned mind

There are MANY different benefits to working from home polices in terms of environmental benefits (less cars on the road and/or stuck on the M62 might be nice for some), parental responsibilities, focus in busy environments (who on earth likes working in open offices?!) and countless others.

Despite the fact I personally wouldn’t work from home if I chose to I would still discourage an employer from withdrawing the facility. Fact is that it’s outdated to think that computerised work can only take place in one location and that location must be the company offices. Not everybody wants to work in an office and be closely supervised on work they can do easily at home. Just why am I working this hard just so that employers can decide working from a beach bar is a bad idea?

Powered by Pasties

Last week I’ve been back at work after a week scoffing pasties down in Cornwall with the family. I had a Parkrun and a few sea swims in between too which has been great. I also gave myself time to finish reading Diana Nyad’s memoir Find a Way.

Diana was the first person to swim from Cuba to the United States. This incredible achievement over a distance of around 180km (110 miles) took 5 attempts, a lot of heartache and dedication to the dream.

I wanted to read this book after watching an interesting Ted Talk by Diana titled “Never, ever give up”. In the 15 minute appearance she talks about the challenges and motivation she found for taking on extreme distance swimming. Right at the end she calls to the crowd “find a way!”. Not only did I want to read her full story I wanted to find out who exactly Badass Bonnie was too!

I found Find a Way well worth the read and interesting as an open water swimmer. I would definitely recommend it to anyone whether a swimmer, sports fan or in need of some inspiration.

That is also to say that other than doing “catch up” not in the water that’s as much as I’ve done professionally following my return.

I’M STILL ALIVE!!!1!!ONE

I remembered this week that I’ve not posted here for a while so in the interest of (1) confirming I am alive, (2) making some fluff up to prevent the blog from looking “abandoned pending domain expiry” and (3) to get back in some kind of rhythm.

Honestly it’s been busy. Nobody wants to stand still and as we all work out what’s going to be the “new normal” there’s a lot of push for cloud, automation and remote connectivity. That means a lot of work to be done so less time to have a natter on the blog.

Hopefully I will have a new laptop to review pretty soon so watch out for that.

Lick Of Paint

Speaking to a lot of people right now everyone’s at the stage where they’ve not much to talk about seen as they can’t leave their homes and…you know…do interesting things. I am looking forward to being back swimming and for a pint at the pub (not together though).

In the meantime I put a fresh lick of paint on the blog. Enjoy.

There’s Not Much To Say!

(Well there is but you know what I mean.)

In the UK we have gone into Lockdown 3: The Winter Crisis so there’s not much Round Tabling, swimming or pubbing to be done until the COVID-19 virus is brought under control. Fortunately consultancy is back in full swing so the bills are getting paid.

Priority number one and two for 2021 will be to stay safe and get the vaccine respectively. As a child my parents would always tell me to play outside and avoid any drugs especially needles. In 2021 they’re telling me to stop inside and get a jab as soon as my turn comes up. How times change.

Over Twixmas I did try my hand at building a PiHole on a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B that has been lurking in my drawer but I scrapped it after a week. I felt the omission of DNS over HTTP/TLS by default is too important to overlook. I plan to build a WiFi 6 core network at my house sometime in 2021.

Meanwhile I’ve been discussing PC builds with some good friends of mine as we’re enjoying Cyberpunk 2077. I’m currently drawing up a parts list for my next custom build I’ve provisionally called Build-V. Yes that is indeed because it’s the 5th custom build I’m intending to put together and yes that’s where all that petrol money I’ve saved is going.

The Current Situation

This week marks the end of the third week of isolation at home for me. As our technical work is primarily remote anyway we began this practice 1 week before the UK was put into lockdown. Now that situation is government mandated that means both myself and my colleagues are at home until UK.gov say so.

Not all people have the luxury of staying at home, getting paid and keeping out of harm’s way. I’d like to thank people in my local community for keeping me running during the lockdown: Haigh’s Farm Shop, the three local Co-Op stores in Mirfield, the local Hermes delivery driver and I’m sure many more to come. It’s far too easy to take people for granted and I hope that at least one positive outcome of this lockdown is that we learn to appreciate what these people do for the community.

In terms of work nothing’s really slowed down for me as of yet. I still have upcoming projects to plan, projects going live, live-running systems that need some technical assistance. Should that dry up the plan will be to do some level of self-training to top up our skills. I haven’t had the time to even think this through yet but I suppose brushing up on SQL Server, T-SQL and maybe even learn some Python for fun in my spare time.

It has certainly been interesting watching the sudden adoption of “WFH” (Working From Home) practices. There will of course be long-term ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic and not every change inflicted will be positive. I’ve certainly not missed the mass-migration that is the 9-5 rush hour and hopefully new working practices can begin the long and arduous process of finally killing that off. Surely there will be many environmental, social, health and economic reasons for that.

Stay safe and keep observing lockdown.

Where Did 2019 Go?!

It’s been a busy few (many) months at my consultancy job handling the influx of work that has come in. This is thanks to the retirement of Windows Server 2008 & 2008 R2 and also Windows 7. All of those releases were really solid ones (for Windows 7 perhaps the last great Microsoft desktop OS?) and even though they have been surpassed they were very capable OSes for their time.

In saying that it’s most definitely time to move away from them now that extended support has run out. A lot of my time recently has been an effort to get clients from the legacy OS based builds onto something newer. For some clients that means upgrades of the business applications as well as new server builds, for others patching their current applications before moving it to a new server and for the fortunate few just a patch to install. Things like this exemplify the reasons why it’s important in IT to maintain systems and plan for end of support. There is arguably more cost incurred by doing nothing then having to do essentially a project in order to end up with a supported set of OS and applications versus constant planned maintenance.

For the next few months we are concentrating on implementing a new version of the business intelligence tool we resell. It has moved from a direct database connected Excel add-in to one that communicates to a server over HTTP/S. There are many pros and cons to this change and we continue to explore these as we implement with our clients. This will surely keep us busy for a while.

This week in SQL Server largely was the release of Cumulative Update 19 for SQL Server 2017 which I am sure will find its way to a UAT or support server near me soon.

Let’s Review WiFi Security

I recently decided to update my wireless keys and I wanted to share some notes to help others understand what needs to be done to not only have a secure network but also one that performs well.

Tip 1: Choose WPA2.

WEP and WPA are both done for. In addition the 802.11n spec states that you must use WPA2 or else your WiFi won’t set a rate of any higher than 54Mbps. You also need WMM APSD enabled so don’t forget that either. Is there any counter argument left here?

If you are in an enterprise environment you should deploy WPA2-Enterprise which relies on an accounting method such as RADIUIS instead of shared paraphrases to authenticate. This makes it much easier to manage who or what gains access to the network.

Tip 2: choose a sensible length key with a mix of letters, cases, numbers and symbols.

Whilst you’re unlikely to have an issue with someone sat outside in a white van cracking your WiFi keys it’s no harm to choose a password that is something other than a word you might find in a dictionary.

Balance your passphrase complexity and length with user friendliness. A 32 digit key that looks like your cat had a rampage on your keyboard only infuriates your family and tires poor little fingers.

A passphrase 12 digits long with uppercase, lowercase, some numbers and a few symbols thrown in should suffice. Don’t write it down on a scrap of paper either!

Tip 3: Don’t rely on MAC filtering or hiding your SSID. They aren’t security settings. They’re actually management functions.

MAC filtering can be very cumbersome to maintain not to mention someone in that infamous white van mentioned above can sniff out what MAC adresses are transmitting on WiFi which can then be spoofed very easily.

Hiding your SSID in effect sets a flag to the device OS “do not display me”. Imagine of someone wrote software that just ignored such a flag? I’m sure someone hasn’t done that. Surely…

Tip 4: Segregate guest traffic and don’t hand out connection details to your core network.

If you want to offer guess access do it right. Even in a SOHO environment you should avoid the risk of someone introducing a malware bitten device into your network.

For best results your guest access needs to separate the guest traffic by using a VLAN. Consult your router’s documentation for specific details here.