connection string to MS sql server with DBI

Check this out: http://www.freetds.org/

I currently use it to connect to MS SQl Server from a Linux box. I use PHP but you should have no problem using Perl.

For the authentication you would have to give valid login information. I use the sa account but my application sits behind a firewall so I am not too worried about security.

hello subir

U can check the following link about connecting to MS SQL server using DBI

https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/21057322/How-do-i-Connect-TO-MS-SQL-Server-2000-Using-Perl.html
good luck
ronan

Ronan I did check that....looks like things like things r lil bit different there than mine. My database doesn't have a username, password .......and i login to the sql server with windows authentication. So does that change my connection string?

Subir.

Hi subirc,

As Sasho already mentioned, you can use freetds for the odbc connection. Recent versions also support windows authentication, so make sure you read the documentation. As far as I can remember, you supply the windows account info in the freetds configuration file, and if that works, you should be able to connect without a user and password, i.e. $dbh = DBI->connect('dbi:ODBC:yourdsn','','');

An alternative would be to use dbiproxy. I have been meaning to look into this (I'm running Debian Woody, and the freetds version for that is really old, and doesn't support windows auth, which IMHO is an absolute requirement), but haven't had the time yet.
The basic idea is that you connect from the linux box using the dbiproxy client, i.e., something like $dbh = DBI->connect("dbi:Proxy:hostname=$host;port=$port;dsn=$db", $user, $passwd);
You'd then have to run a dbiproxy server on another host (quite possibly the database server) that does the odbc for you.
It should have the advantage of being able to do all the odbc stuff you need, without having to install it on the linux box.

HTH,
Kandura

Ok time to come back to you experts!!!

I have my DBI script as follows

my $sql = "select * from schemadzu";
my $dsn = 'DBI:ODBC:LocalServer';
my $dbh = DBI->connect($dsn, '', '') || die &DBerror; #since I m using windows authentication, I shouldn't have a ID & passwd
my $sth = $dbh->prepare($sql) || die;
$sth->execute();
....
.....
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also freeTDS and unixODBC is installed.

My odbc.ini file (under unixodbc)  looks like this

;  odbc.ini
;
[ODBC Data Sources]
dbprogrammer=freetds driver mssql 2000

[ODBC]
TraceFile=/tmp/odbc.trace
Trace=1

[dbprogrammer]
Driver=/usr/local/opt/freetds/lib/libtdsodbc.so
Server=dbprogrammer.bowdoin.edu
Database=DB201
Port=1433
TDS_Version=8.0

[DEFAULT]
Driver=/usr/local/opt/freetds/lib/libtds.so
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I still can't get a connection to the database. why?   The ERROR I am getting is listed below:

DBI connect('LocalServer','',...) failed: [unixODBC][Driver Manager]Driver's SQLAllocHandle on SQL_HANDLE_HENV failed (SQL-IM004)(DBD: db_login/SQLConnect err=-1) at connect_to_sqlserver.pl line 8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note: my data source name is "LocalServer" and my sqlserver name is "DBPROGRAMMER".

ok i added a user name and a password to my database (thinking that windows authentication was the problem). The new conn string looks like this...........

my $dbh = DBI->connect($dsn, 'subirc', 'subir123') || die &DBerror;

Still getting same error

DBI connect('LocalServer','',...) failed: [unixODBC][Driver Manager]Driver's SQLAllocHandle on SQL_HANDLE_HENV failed (SQL-IM004)(DBD: db_login/SQLConnect err=-1) at connect_to_sqlserver.pl line 8