FreeTDS Development Group

[Blake Nyquist <blake.nyquist AT voyager.net>]

Hello, all. First off, I wanted to commend all the developers and 
contributors to the FreeTDS project! It has come in extremely handy for us 
as we recently inherited responsibility for numerous M$ SQL Server 
databases even though our group specializes in Linux-based systems.

We have been using FreeTDS through Perl's DBD::Sybase module, but maybe the 
current problem will change that for us.... Due to unique security 
requirements for some of our database logins, we are trying to use an MD5 
encrypted password as the actual DB password. Since using MD5 automatically 
forces any plain-text password to 32 characters, it appears this is causing 
problems with logins.

After some poking around, we believe there is a limitation on sending a 
password greater than 27 characters in length. Does anyone know if this is 
a limitation on FreeTDS's part, DBD::Sybase's part, or some other piece of 
the puzzle? Are there any known solutions or work-arounds? The 32-character 
password can be used through M$'s query analyzer tool just fine, so the 
database itself doesn't seem to have any problems with the longer password.

I was wondering if Perl's DBD::ODBC module would fix the problem, but I 
haven't had luck in successfully installing that module with FreeTDS. If 
anyone has a thorough how-to for getting that setup correctly, that would 
also be a huge help (even if it doesn't fix this problem)!!!

Our existing setup is on a Red Hat Linux box with Perl 5.6, the latest 
version of DBD::Sybase and about a 2-month-old snapshot of FreeTDS. Other 
than, staying on Linux and using Perl there are no requirements for what 
means we use to make this work. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

cheers,
Blake Nyquist


__________________
Blake Nyquist
blake.nyquist AT voyager.net