Microsoft.Data.SqlClient 7.0 Is Here: A Leaner, More Modular Driver for SQL Server
Today we're shipping the general availability release of Microsoft.Data.SqlClient 7.0, a major milestone for the .NET data provider for SQL Server. This release tackles the single most requested change in the repository's history, introduces powerful new extensibility points for authentication, and adds protocol-level features for Azure SQL Hyperscale, all while laying the groundwork for a more modular driver architecture. If you take away one thing from this post: the core SqlClient package is dramatically lighter now. Azure dependencies have been extracted into a separate package, and you only pull them in if you need them. dotnet add package Microsoft.Data.SqlClient --version 7.0.0 The #1 Request: A Lighter Package For years, the most upvoted issue in the SqlClient repository asked the same question: "Why does my console app that just talks to SQL Server pull in Azure.Identity, MSAL, and WebView2?" With 7.0, it doesn't anymore. We've extracted all Azure / Microsoft Entra authentication functionality into a new Microsoft.Data.SqlClient.Extensions.Azure package. The core driver no longer carries Azure.Core, Azure.Identity, Microsoft.Identity.Client, or any of their transitive dependencies. If you connect with SQL authentication or Windows integrated auth, your bin folder just got dramatically smaller. For teams that do use Entra authentication, the migration is straightforward. Add one package reference and you're done: dotnet add package Microsoft.Data.SqlClient.Extensions.Azure No code changes. No configuration changes. You can also now update Azure dependency versions on your own schedule, independent of driver releases. This is something library authors and enterprise teams have been asking for. Pluggable Authentication with SspiContextProvider Integrated authentication in containers and cross-domain environments has always been a pain point. Kerberos ticket management, sidecar processes, domain trust configuration: the workarounds were never simple. Version 7.0 introduces a new public SspiContextProvider API on SqlConnection that lets you take control of the authentication handshake. You provide the token exchange logic; the driver handles everything else. var connection = new SqlConnection(connectionString); connection.SspiContextProvider = new MyKerberosProvider(); connection.Open(); This opens the door to scenarios the driver never natively supported: authenticating across untrusted domains, using NTLM with explicit credentials, or implementing custom Kerberos negotiation in Kubernetes pods. A sample implementation is available in the repository. Async Read Performance: Packet Multiplexing (Preview) One of the most community-driven features in 7.0 is packet multiplexing, a change to how the driver processes TDS packets during asynchronous reads. Originally contributed by community member Wraith2, this work delivers a significant leap in async read performance for large result sets. Packet multiplexing was first introduced in 6.1 and has been refined across the 7.0 preview cycle with additional bug fixes and stability improvements. In 7.0, it ships behind two opt-in feature switches so we can gather broader real-world feedback before making it the default: AppContext.SetSwitch("Switch.Microsoft.Data.SqlClient.UseCompatibilityAsyncBehaviour", false); AppContext.SetSwitch("Switch.Microsoft.Data.SqlClient.UseCompatibilityProcessSni", false); Setting both switches to false enables the new async processing path. By default, the driver uses the existing (compatible) behavior. We need your help. If your application performs large async reads (ExecuteReaderAsync with big result sets, streaming scenarios, or bulk data retrieval), please try enabling these switches and let us know how it performs in your environment. File your results on GitHub Issues to help us move this toward on-by-default in a future release. Enhanced Routing for Azure SQL Azure SQL environments with named read replicas and gateway-based load balancing can now take advantage of enhanced routing, a TDS protocol feature that lets the server redirect connections to a specific server and database during login. This is entirely transparent to your application. No connection string changes, no code changes. The driver negotiates the capability automatically when the server supports it. .NET 10 Ready SqlClient 7.0 compiles and tests against the .NET 10 SDK, so you're ready for the next major .NET release on day one. Combined with continued support for .NET 8, .NET 9, .NET Framework 4.6.2+, and .NET Standard 2.0 (restored in 6.1), the driver covers the full spectrum of active .NET runtimes. ActiveDirectoryPassword Is Deprecated: Plan Your Migration As Microsoft moves toward mandatory multifactor authentication across its services, we've deprecated SqlAuthenticationMethod.ActiveDirectoryPassword (the ROPC flow). The method still works in 7.0, but it's marked [Obsolete] and will generate compiler warnings. Now is the time to move to a stronger alternative: Scenario Recommended Authentication Interactive / desktop apps Active Directory Interactive Service-to-service Active Directory Service Principal Azure-hosted workloads Active Directory Managed Identity Developer / CI environments Active Directory Default Quality of Life Improvements Beyond the headline features, 7.0 includes a collection of improvements that make the driver more reliable and easier to work with in production. Better retry logic. The new SqlConfigurableRetryFactory.BaselineTransientErrors property exposes the built-in transient error codes, so you can extend the default list with your own application-specific codes instead of copy-pasting error numbers from source. More app context switches. You can now set MultiSubnetFailover=true globally, ignore server-provided failover partners in Basic Availability Groups, and control async multi-packet behavior, all without modifying connection strings. Better diagnostics on .NET Framework. SqlClientDiagnosticListener is now enabled for SqlCommand on .NET Framework, closing a long-standing observability gap. Connection performance fix. A regression where SPN generation was unnecessarily triggered for SQL authentication connections on the native SNI path has been resolved. Performance improvements. Allocation reductions across Always Encrypted scenarios, SqlStatistics timing, and key store providers. Upgrading from 6.x For most applications, upgrading is a package version bump: dotnet add package Microsoft.Data.SqlClient --version 7.0.0 If you use Microsoft Entra authentication, also add: dotnet add package Microsoft.Data.SqlClient.Extensions.Azure If you use ActiveDirectoryPassword, you'll see a compiler warning. Start planning your migration to a supported auth method. Review the full release notes in release-notes/7.0 for the complete list of changes across all preview releases. Thank You to Our Contributors Open-source contributions are central to SqlClient's development. We'd like to recognize the community members who contributed to the 7.0 release: edwardneal · ErikEJ · MatthiasHuygelen · ShreyaLaxminarayan · tetolv · twsouthwick · Wraith2 What's Next We're continuing to invest in performance, modularity, and modern .NET alignment. Stay tuned for updates on the roadmap, and keep the feedback coming. Your issues and discussions directly shape what we build. NuGet: Microsoft.Data.SqlClient 7.0.0 GitHub: dotnet/SqlClient Issues & Feedback: github.com/dotnet/SqlClient/issues Docs: Microsoft.Data.SqlClient on Microsoft LearnSQL Server 2025 Preview: Now Supporting Ubuntu 24.04 and TLS 1.3
We are excited to introduce two key enhancements in the SQL Server 2025 Release Candidate 0 (RC0) for Linux: Ubuntu 24.04 and the addition of Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.3 support. These updates enable developers, database administrators, and IT professionals to leverage the latest open-source technologies and security protocols, strengthening their data platforms. Ubuntu 24.04 Support in SQL Server 2025 RC0 SQL Server 2025 Preview now supports Ubuntu 24.04. This enables seamless deployment in Dev/Test environments using the Enterprise Evaluation Edition, which is valid for 180 days. Note: Production workloads on Ubuntu 24.04 are not yet supported; for production, use SQL Server 2022 on Ubuntu 22.04 or RHEL 9. How to Deploy SQL Server 2025 RC0 on Ubuntu 24.04 Getting started is easy! You can follow our Quickstart: Install SQL Server and create a database on Ubuntu to walks through everything—from prepping your system to installing and configuring SQL Server on Ubuntu. In this demo, I'll show you how to deploy SQL Server 2025 RC0 on Ubuntu 24.04 running inside WSL2. I've already set up Ubuntu 24.04 on WSL2 and Docker Desktop to manage containers. With just two commands, I was able to launch SQL Server 2025 RC0 in a container. I then connected to it using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), where you can see the version information displayed, confirming a successful deployment. lsb_release -a docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2025-RC0-ubuntu-24.04 docker run -e "ACCEPT_EULA=Y" -e "MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=<password>" \ -e "MSSQL_AGENT_ENABLED=true" \ -p 14333:1433 --name sql2025preview --hostname sql2025preview \ -d mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2025-RC0-ubuntu-24.04 Here is the snippet of SQL Server ERRORLOG This shows the initial startup messages and confirms the SQL Server version running inside the container. TLS 1.3 Support in SQL Server 2025 RC0 Starting in SQL Server 2025 Preview (RC0), TLS 1.3 is enabled by default. To enable and validate TLS 1.3 for your SQL Server instance, follow the Learn guide: Encrypt Connections to SQL Server on Linux - SQL Server | Microsoft Learn Conclusion The addition of Ubuntu 24.04 and TLS 1.3 support in SQL Server 2025 Preview marks a significant step forward in providing modern, secure, and flexible data platform options. We encourage you to try out these new capabilities and share your feedback as we continue to improve SQL Server for the Linux ecosystem. We recommend you use any of the following options that suits you the best. 1) Send us an email with your feedback to sqlpreviewpackage@microsoft.com. 2) Another option would be to submit your comments directly on Azure Ideas (Use the SQL Server on Linux Group on the left side of the page) 3) Alternatively, you can open issues related to the preview packages Issues · microsoft/mssql-docker (github.com) on GitHub. We hope you give SQL Server 2025 preview on Ubuntu 24.04 a try and let us know what you think!
Missing client protocols
Hello everyone, I have a problem with one of my two SQL Server instances. The client protocols are missing for one of the instances. You can actually add these there (see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/database-engine/configure-windows/configure-client-protocols?view=sql-server-ver16#ChangeDefault ) but unfortunately the Properties entry is missing (see image below). I have never had this before. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance, FrankIntroducing adutil - A tool to ease configuration of AD authentication for SQL on Linux/Containers
We are excited to introduce adutil in public preview, this is a CLI based utility developed to ease the AD authentication configuration for both SQL Server on Linux and SQL Server Linux containers. AD authentication enables domain-joined clients on either Windows or Linux to authenticate to SQL Server using their domain credentials and the Kerberos protocol. Until today, when configuring the AD authentication for SQL on Linux, for creation of "AD user for SQL Server and setting SPNs" you needed to switch from Linux to Windows machine and then switch back to Linux machine to continue with the rest of steps. With adutil released we aim to make this experience seamless, where from the Linux machine itself you can interact and manage the Active Directory domains through the CLI. Overall adutil is a utility for interacting with and managing Active Directory domains through the CLI. adutil is designed as a series of commands and subcommands, with additional flags that can be specified for further input. Each top-level command represents a category of administrative functions. Each subcommand is an operation within that category. Using adutil you can manage with users, SPNs, keytabs, groups etc. To start using adutil please see adutil installation for the install steps For details on how you can configure AD authentication with adutil for SQL on Linux and containers please refer below: Configure Active Directory authentication for SQL Server on Linux using adutil Configure Active Directory authentication for SQL Server on Linux containers using adutil Thanks, Engineering lead: Mike Habben Engineering: Dylan Gray; Dyllon (Owen) Gagnier; Ethan Moffat; Madeline MacDonald Amit Khandelwal Senior Program Manager
