This guide will take you through all the different aspects of running SQL Server in a container.

All the code here is run in Docker Desktop on Windows 10 using the WSL2 backend, executed in powershell v7. The commands should mostly work on other platforms but they would not have been tested.

If you have any questions, please contact me at [email protected]

Quick Start - Get up and running with SQL Server in a container
The Quick Start walkthrough

Pull down an image and spin up a container
Docker environment variables

Persisting data using named volumes
Persisting data using data volume containers
Persisting data using bind mounts (volumes from the host)

Learn how to build a custom SQL Server 2019 container image
Build a custom SQL Server image from scratch
Build a custom SQL Server image with a database ready to go
Pushing an image to the Docker Hub
Exporting and importing Docker images
Let's go nuts! Creating a custom SQL Server image from scratch with a database ready to go!

Running SQL Containers on the default network
Running SQL Containers on a custom network

An introduction to Docker Compose
More advanced Docker Compose

Copying files to/from a container
Viewing container logs
Executing commands against a container