FreeTDS Development Group

["James K. Lowden" <jklowden AT freetds.org>]

On Mon, 29 Oct 2012 16:11:21 -0400
Steven Peterson <speterson AT listpilot.com> wrote:

Thanks for explaining the scenario; at least now I see why the firewall
is a legitimate obstacle.  

> the computers I am trying to connect to are clients' computers for
> which I am reluctant to ask to change their firewall.  

OK. 

> The computers I am connecting from use virtual IPs so that the
> computers are easy to move around and upgrade without changing the
> source IP (theoretically).  

I suppose the same machine is connecting to multiple servers, each with
its own restriction on source IP address?  

It seems the source address *could* be controlled in FreeTDS using
bind(2).  I've never done it, but a lap around the Internets suggests
that would work.  I would guess that's what "ssh -b" does, for
instance.  If you provided a patch to do that using a new setting in
freetds.conf, along with documentation, I could see myself applying
it.  

However, this is a general problem: in general, to connect to remote
machines, all clients, not only FreeTDS, need to present themselves as
originating from an acceptable source.  The natural answer is to use
network address translation at the source.  

--jkl