Microsoft SQL Server 2025 finally hit general availability today, following a private preview a year ago and a public preview back in May. That said, the AI-focused release is still in a public preview state for Linux, which is expected. At its Ignite 2025 conference today, Microsoft has shared an update regarding SQL Server 2025 on Linux.
Microsoft has boasted that SQL Server adoption on Linux has been "phenomenal" and that the adoption of the specific 2025 public preview release has been "remarkable". This highlights the need for cross-platform solutions, especially for customers who gravitate to Linux for particular needs. Microsoft has been working with Canonical, DH2i, PortWorx, and Red Hat to build robust solutions for the latest Linux distros.
To that end, SQL Server 2025 supports RHEL 10 and Ubuntu 24.04 in a preview state. However, the latest release has dropped support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES). If you use SQL Server 2022 or an older version on this distro, you will continue receiving cumulative updates based on its respective lifecycle policy.
In terms of enhancements available for SQL Server 2025 in Linux, we have support for TLS 1.3, the ability to configure custom password policies via Active Directory (adutil) or mssql.conf for non-domain setups, and the availability of signed container images for this SQL Server version. On the performance optimization front, we have support for the tmpfs filesystem for the storage of log files and tempdb data. This enhancement is also available for container-based deployments, but keep in mind that data stored on this filesystem is ephemeral, so it will be lost if the container restarts.
Just like Windows, SQL Server 2025 on Linux supports bring your own driver (BYOD) capabilities so that you can query external data sources with ease. Developers can also deploy SQL Server 2025 local containers directly from Visual Studio Code using the SQL Server (mssql) extension. You can find out more details here.