FreeTDS Development Group

[Frediano Ziglio <freddy77 AT gmail.com>]

Il giorno mer, 03/12/2008 alle 18.54 -0600, Jeff Dyson ha scritto:
> Hello,
> 
> I am working on a Linux box that was previously configured with FreeTDS.  
> An IT admin has "proven" that the box can communicate with SQL Server by 
> successfully connecting to the database with the tsql command.  My 
> questions are - Does a successful tsql connection confirm that a FreeTDS 
> ODBC driver is installed on the box?  If so, is there a way to determine 
> which ODBC driver is in use by the tsql command?
> 
> I am new to FreeTDS.  I have read the FreeTDS User Guide but cannot find 
> some of the files or directories referenced in the doc.  These missing 
> items make me suspicious that the ODBC driver is not installed and that 
> tsql does not require an ODBC driver.
> 

no, tsql use libTDS, the core library, this means that you can have tsql
but not ODBC. You can also install our ODBC driver without tsql but if
you start from sources it's hard.

> For example:
> 
> *         There is no "freetds" directory on the box as referenced in the 
> section about setting environment variables.
> 

you are right, /usr/local/freetds is used in these examples but default
is /usr/local

> *         This "freetds" directory is also referenced in the DSN-less 
> configuration section in the Driver= example for the odbcinst.ini file.
> 
> *         The driver named in the Driver= parameter is libtdsodbc.so.  My 
> goal is to find this file, but it does not exist on the system.
> 

Mmm... mostly due to missing DM (driver manager) headers during
configure/compile. configure script try to detect the location of these
includes, if not founded ODBC get not compiled. You can use
--with-XXodbc (XXX is the DM type) to override default detect code.

Some systems (like HP-UX) use different extension for so (HP-UX use sl).

> *         There is no "unittests" directory as referenced in the Confirming 
> the Installation.
> 

well... this is normal the chapter start with "The source code
directory...", unittests directories are in source, not installed.

> My tsql command is as follows:
> tsql -S sql83 -U userid -P password -D _database_
> 
> When run, I see the message "Default database being set to _database_".  If 
> I run tsql with a bogus database name, I receive a 'Cannot open 
> database...' message.  The sql83 server is defined in 
> /usr/local/etc/freetds.conf.  The [sql83] entry identifies the host, the 
> port, and the tds version (8.0).
> 

you can use tsql -C to see freetds.conf directory, mine reports

$ ./tsql -C
Compile-time settings (established with the "configure" script)
                            Version: freetds v0.83.dev.20081128
             freetds.conf directory: /home/freddy/tds_install/etc
     MS db-lib source compatibility: no
        Sybase binary compatibility: no
                      Thread safety: yes
                      iconv library: yes
                        TDS version: 5.0
                              iODBC: no
                           unixodbc: no

(I use a home based installation for testing)

you can enable TDSDUMPCONFIG to see what tsql find

TDSDUMPCONFIG=stderr tsql -S sql83 -U userid -P password -D _database_

(all in a single line)

> The /etc/odbc.ini file as referenced in Chapter 4 is empty.
> 

However is present. This probably means that DM installation directory
is in /usr so include directory for DM should be /usr/include and should
be detected by our configure script... probably you don't have headers
installed. Which system do you use? Linux usually (debian, redhat, suse)
use mostly unixODBC so you probably miss unixODBC-devel (or
unixODBC-dev) package (if you use Linux!).

> Given the above, is it possible that I am working with an incomplete 
> FreeTDS installation?  Or at a minimum, is it possible that the ODBC 
> drivers were omitted from the install?
> 

yes

> Thanks for any thoughts or direction,
> Jeff

thanks for the UserGuide hints, they are very welcome.

Frediano