Open a Firewall Port for SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server, often simply called SQL Server for short, is one of the three most popular enterprise-class DBMS packages.    This topic is the second step in a five topic sequence showing a complete installation and then utilization of SQL Server 2017 Express from the very beginning.  Please see the Install SQL Server topic for basic info on SQL Server.

 

Disclaimer: These topics were accurate when written, using the versions of installation software indicated.  Third party packages can and do change, so this topic may be out-of-date.  It is provided as an example of how such installations can be approached.

 

Installing SQL Server and readying it for use in typical installations involves five steps:

 

Install SQL Server

 

Open a Firewall Port for SQL Server

 

Enable TCP/IP for SQL Server

 

Create a Database in SQL Server

 

Connect to SQL Server

 

This is the second topic in the above sequence of steps.

 

In this topic, we are using a 64-bit Windows 10 system to which we have connected via Remote Desktop (RDP).  This entire topic was conducted on that machine via RDP.   

Local Connections or Connect through the Network?

If we have Manifold installed on the same computer on which we install SQL Server, and if we will always use our SQL Server installation from the same computer, we can skip this step.  For example, if we are an individual user with only one computer and we do everything on that one computer, we can always connect to SQL Server from Manifold using a localhost designation, that is, not going through any network.

 

We only need to do this procedure if we want to access this SQL Server installation through the network from other computers.  For example, if we work in an organization with several computers and one of them hosts this SQL Server installation but we actually do our Manifold work on a different computer, to connect from our desktop computer to the machine hosting SQL Server we have to be able to connect to it through the web.

Before You Get Started

One of the installation tips during the screens shown by the installation dialog in the Install SQL Server topic reminded us that if we will connect to our SQL Server installation from a remote computer we must accomplish prerequisites cited in the Before you get started document.   That document is found in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\140\SSEI\Resources\  folder, as an html file called Before you get started.html - the procedures in this topic and the next topic are guided by the requirements set forth in that file.

Open a Port in Windows Defender Firewall

Microsoft's Windows Defender Firewall will prevent connections through the network to SQL Server, so we must first configure the firewall to allow connections, and then (next topic) we must configure SQL Server to accept such connections by using TCP/IP.  That is easy to do.

 

We will allow connections through port 1433, the default port for SQL Server.   We can use a similar procedure to open a port through the firewall for any other database, such as PostgreSQL, for which we might want to allow connections through the Windows firewall.

 

Launch Windows Control Pane, the full version.  That is easiest to do by entering Windows Control Pane in the Windows taskbar search box for launching commands.

 

 

Choose Windows Defender Firewall.   When the app launches, click on Advanced Settings in the left hand stack of choices.

 

 

Click on Inbound Rules. in the left hand pane.   The illustration above appears.  Click on New Rule.

 

 

Choose Port and click Next.

 

 

Enter 1433 and click Next.  That is the default port for SQL Server.

 

 

Choose Allow the connection and click Next.

 

 

Leave all check boxes checked.  Click Next.

 

 

Enter SQL Server, or some other suitably descriptive name which will remind us what this rule does,  and click Finish.

 

 

Done.  We can now close the dialogs by clicking the X buttons in the upper right corners.

 

We have opened a firewall port to stop Windows from blocking access to SQL Server from the network.  Next, we enable TCP/IP use by SQL Server.

 

Next Steps

Continue this case study on installing SQL Server with the Enable TCP/IP for SQL Server topic.

 

Jump to the beginning of the case study: Install SQL Server

 

See Also

Schema

 

DBMS Data Sources - Notes

 

Project Pane

 

File - Create - New Data Source

 

Command Window

 

Real and Virtual Components

 

Install MySQL

 

Install SQL Server

 

Enable TCP/IP for SQL Server

 

Create a Database in SQL Server

 

Connect to SQL Server

 

Install PostgreSQL

 

Install Oracle

 

Big List of Formats and Data Sources

 

Example: Switching between Manifold and Native Query Engines