<p>We have a Windows machine running SQL Server 2005, and we need to be able to run some database queries on it from a Linux box.  What are some of the recommended ways of doing this?  Ideally, we would want a command-line utility similar to sqlcmd on Windows.</p>

FreeTDS
+
unixODBC
or
iODBC
Install first FreeTDS, then configure one of the two ODBC engines to use FreeTDS as its ODBC driver. Then use the commandline interface of the ODBC engine.
unixODBC has isql, iODBC has iodbctest
You can also use your favorite programming language (I've successfully used Perl, C, Python and Ruby to connect to MSSQL)
I'm personally using FreeTDS + iODBC:
```
```
$more /etc/freetds/freetds.conf
[10.0.1.251]
    host = 10.0.1.251
    port = 1433
    tds version = 8.0

$ more /etc/odbc.ini
[ACCT]
Driver = /usr/local/freetds/lib/libtdsodbc.so
Description = ODBC to SQLServer via FreeTDS
Trace = No
Servername = 10.0.1.251
Database = accounts_ver8
```
```