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Here I’ll show you how to install SQL Server on a Mac with VirtualBox running Windows (a free trial edition).

The result of this is that you’ll have both Windows and SQL Server running on your Mac. And because you’re using VirtualBox, switching between macOS and Windows is as easy as switching between any other application.

As mentioned, this method involves Windows. If that scares you, then you might be better off installing SQL Server on your Mac via a Docker container. That method doesn’t involve Windows in any shape or form.

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But if you don’t mind using Windows (or if you need to), here are the main steps for installing SQL Server for Windows on your Mac using VirtualBox:

  1. Download and Install VirtualBox
  2. Create a New Virtual Machine (VM)
  3. Download the Windows ISO image
  4. Install Windows
  5. Download and Install SQL Server

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Below are more detailed instructions for each of these steps.

Download and Install VirtualBox

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  1. The first step is to download VirtualBox from the VirtualBox download page.
  2. Install VirtualBox just as you’d install any other software. Once the .dmg file has downloaded, open it up and double click on the VirtualBox.pkg icon. This opens the installer. Follow the prompts and close the installer once it’s installed.

VirtualBox is virtualization software by Oracle. It allows you to create virtual machines on your computer. This allows you to install other operating systems onto your Mac (or other computer). The benefit of this is that, once you’ve installed another operating system on your Mac, you can run any software that runs on that operating system.

Create a New Virtual Machine (VM)

This is where you create a new virtual machine that you will install Windows on.

  1. Open VirtualBox (via the Applications folder)
  2. Click New
  3. Follow the prompts to the end. Call the virtual machine Windows or Windows 10 or something descriptive. The default settings on each screen should be fine, although it might pay to bump up the memory to around 4GB (or more if you can afford it) when you get to the Memory Size screen. Just be sure to leave enough memory for your host machine.

Once you’ve finished, your new virtual machine will appear in the VirtualBox side panel.

Download the Windows ISO image

Now that we’ve created a virtual machine, we can go ahead and install Windows on that. But first we need to download it.

If you already have access to a fully licensed edition of Windows by all means use that.

If you intend to keep using Windows (i.e. pay for it), download an ISO file from the Microsoft download page.

Otherwise, you can install a free Windows evaluation trial from the Microsoft Evaluation Center. This allows you to install Windows for free, and trial it for 90 days. If you prefer this option, go to the Evaluation Center and select an edition of Windows to download. Note that the Evaluation Center usually only has the Enterprise Edition and Windows Server.

Once downloaded, move the file to the VirtualBox VMs folder. For example /Users/Bob/VirtualBox VMs/. Or even better, just download the file directly to that folder). This isn’t essential though – if you have another place for the file, go ahead and use that instead.

Install Windows

  1. Double click on your virtual machine in the VirtualBox side panel (like the one with the arrow pointing to it in the above screenshot).
  2. Use the interface to browse to the Windows ISO file that you downloaded, and click Start.
  3. Follow the prompts to install Windows.

Once Windows is installed, the Windows desktop will be displayed.

Download and Install SQL Server

These steps are done using Windows inside the virtual machine you just created (not with your macOS).

  1. Using the Windows VM that you just installed, open up Edge (Microsoft’s web browser) and download the SQL Server installation file from Microsoft’s SQL Server download page (seeing as you’ll be doing this from within the VM, it’s probably easiest to do a web search for “download sql server” or similar, and choosing the official Microsoft website from the results). The Developer edition is fine, but use whichever edition suits you best.
  2. Run the installer file and follow the prompts. This downloads and installs SQL Server.
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Once SQL Server has been installed, a screen will appear with Installation has completed successfully! Keep this screen open for now – this screen has a button to install SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). See below for how to install SSMS.

Download and Install SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)

SQL Server Management Studio is a GUI tool from Microsoft that helps you manage SQL Server. SSMS is one of many tools that you can use with SQL Server, so this step is optional. However, if you’re learning how to use SQL Server, you should definitely learn how to use SSMS.

  1. While still on the previous screen (i.e. the one that reads Installation has completed successfully!), click Install SSMS to download SQL Server Management Studio. This opens the SSMS download page in a web browser. Find the download link (it will read Download SQL Server Management Studio 17.6 or similar, depending on the version at the time of download) and click it to download SSMS.
  2. Once downloaded, run the installation file and follow the prompts.

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Once SSMS has been installed, you can open it via the Windows Start menu.

When you open SQL Server Management Studio, a connection will need to be established to SQL Server. A connection box will pop up, allowing you to enter your details or confirm the ones that have been pre-populated. Go ahead and click Connect to start using SQL Server.

Optional Extra: Install the VirtualBox Guest Additions

Guest Additions is a free optional extra that can make your life easier when working with your virtual machine. Guest Additions provides closer integration between the virtual machine and the host machine. Guest Additions provides features such as shared folders, time synchronization, mouse pointer integration, and more.

The VirtualBox Guest Additions are installed inside the virtual machine after you’ve installed Windows (or other operating system).

For more information about the Guest Additions, as well as installation instructions, see this Guest Additions help article on the VirtualBox website.

For the first time, SQL Server 2017 allows users to install the product on Linux. This opens the doors for working with fully-featured SQL Server database engines on MacOS through freely distributable Docker containers. With the addition of a new graphical user interface that's in public preview, Mac users can now leverage the same industry-leading database platform that has previously only been available to Windows users, all on their local computer. Let me show you how to get started in three easy steps.

1. Install Docker

The first step is to install Docker. Start at https://store.docker.com/editions/community/docker-ce-desktop-mac, and click the Get Docker button on the top right. That will download a disc image containing the application. Drag Docker.app into your Applications folder and give it a double-click to launch. Look for the Docker icon in the top menu bar. When the animation stops, Docker is ready to go. Step one: done.

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2. Pull the SQL Server 2017 container

Next, start up Terminal.app. This is where you'll issue commands to Docker. Microsoft provides pre-configured images that include the Developer edition of SQL Server 2017 running on Ubuntu Linux. You can pull the most recent version with the following command.

After supplying your MacOS Administrator password, the image is downloaded.

Docker images need to be unpacked into containers, and a single image can be used to create as many identical containers as you'd like; just be sure to give them unique names. The following command will create a single container called 'sqlserver1' from the image you just downloaded. A couple of points:

  • Note that you'll want to provide your own strong password for the SQL Server System Administrator account. Just replace 'YourStrong!Passw0rd' with something better.

  • Port 1401 on the local computer will be forwarded to SQL Server's default listening port of 1433 inside the container. This will be important to remember later.

  • Make sure that you forward a different port to 1433 if you decide to create additional containers.

To verify that everything is working as intended, you can check the status of Docker's containers.

You should see a line for the container and, hopefully, a status of 'up.' If you see 'exited' here, go back and double check the previous commands were typed correctly. You can also try 'docker stop sqlserver1' followed by 'docker start sqlserver1' to reset the server. With the container now running, you're done with step two.

3. Install SQL Operations Studio

Microsoft is in the beginning stages of developing a cross-platform graphical user interface for SQL Server called SQL Operations Studio. Though it's still in an early public preview, SQL Ops Studio is already showing promise as a robust, lightweight interface that brings the best of SQL Server Management Studio (a venerable workhorse, but sadly Windows-only) over to the Mac and Linux platforms. The Ops Studio GitHub page will be your source of information as the project progresses. Head over to the GitHub repository, scroll down to the first section of the readme and download the MacOS zip containing the latest stable preview.

Upon Operations Studio's first launch, the Connection window will automatically prompt you for login credentials. Use 'localhost' as the name of the server, 'SA' as the user name, and fill in the password that you established when the Docker container was created. Then press the Advanced button, and scroll through the properties list until you get to the General section. Fill in the port number of 1401 here, or whichever port you're passing to SQL Server's 1433 listening port. Press OK, then Connect.

That should connect, and pass you back to the main interface. If you've ever seen Visual Studio Code, then you'll instantly recognize the interface's clean and well-organized layout. On the left is a listing of servers you're connected to. Expand the server folder to explore databases, security items and so on.

You're now up and running with the SQL Server database engine running in a Docker container, and you can manage it with Operations Studio on your Mac!

Bonus step 4. Start working with your new SQL Database Engine

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What good is a server without a database? Right-click the Databases folder, and choose New Query. In the SQLQuery1 tab, type in the following command.

Press the Run button to create your first database, which you should see pop up under the Databases folder. You might need to right-click the databases folder and choose Refresh if it doesn't show up immediately.

Operations Studio has a great feature called Snippets that help you quickly write common T-SQL commands. Clear out the CREATE DATABASE statement and change the Connection drop-down at the top to MyDatabase. Type 'sql' to see the list of included snippets presented in the IntelliSense popup box.

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Arrow down to sqlCreateTable and press Return. Operations Studio fills in all of the T-SQL to help you create a table in the database.

Notice that all of the TableName placeholders are selected, ready for you to overwrite them with your own name. Type it once, and each one gets updated simultaneously. Press the tab key to move over to SchemaName and change that to 'dbo' (since we haven't created any other schemas at this point). Then all that's left is to modify the Column1 and Column2 placeholders on lines 10 and 11, choose appropriate data types, and add additional columns as needed.

Press the Run button when done to create your first table, in your first database, on your SQL Server instance, running on Ubuntu Linux, inside of a Docker container, on your Mac.

You're done!

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Welcome from SQL Server 2017: Linux, Docker, and macOS by Adam Wilbert

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Welcome from SQL Server 2017: Linux, Docker, and macOS by Adam Wilbert

Dig in deeper with my course SQL Server 2017: Linux, Docker, and MacOS

I go into way more detail on the process of working with SQL Server on these newly available platforms in my newest course here on LinkedIn Learning. In it, I demonstrate the process of setting up SQL Server on Linux, use the sqlcmd command line tool, dive deeper into Docker, and connect instances to and from other machines on the network. Or, for more information on how to use SQL Server now that you're up and running, check out Learn SQL Server 2017.

Adam Wilbert is a LinkedIn Learning / Lynda.com author of over forty courses on SQL Server, Microsoft Access, database design and development, and mapping with ArcGIS. Come say 'hi' on Twitter: @awilbert.