Install and configure ODBC on Linux

The ODBC driver for Windows is provided as a shared library.

This tutorial shows how to install and configure ODBC on Linux.

Prerequisites

unixODBC

The ODBC driver requires a driver manager to manage the DSNs. SQreamDB’s driver is built for unixODBC.

Verify unixODBC is installed by running:

$ odbcinst -j
unixODBC 2.3.4
DRIVERS............: /etc/odbcinst.ini
SYSTEM DATA SOURCES: /etc/odbc.ini
FILE DATA SOURCES..: /etc/ODBCDataSources
USER DATA SOURCES..: /home/rhendricks/.odbc.ini
SQLULEN Size.......: 8
SQLLEN Size........: 8
SQLSETPOSIROW Size.: 8

Take note of the location of .odbc.ini and .odbcinst.ini. In this case, /etc. If odbcinst is not installed, follow the instructions for your platform below:

Install unixODBC on RHEL

$ yum install -y unixODBC unixODBC-devel

Install the ODBC driver with a script

Use this method if you have never used ODBC on your machine before. If you have existing DSNs, see the manual install process below.

1. Unpack the tarball Copy the downloaded file to any directory, and untar it to a new directory:

   $ mkdir -p sqream_odbc64
   $ tar -xf sqream_odbc_vX.Y_x86_64_linux.tar.gz  --strip-components=1  -C sqream_odbc64/
   

2. Run the first-time installer. The installer will create an editable DSN.

   $ cd sqream_odbc64
   ./odbc_install.sh --install
   

3. Edit the DSN created by editing /etc/.odbc.ini. See the parameter explanation in the section ODBC DSN Parameters.

Install the ODBC driver manually

Use this method when you have existing ODBC DSNs on your machine.

1. Unpack the tarball Copy the file you downloaded to the directory where you want to install it, and untar it:

   $ tar xf sqream_2019.2.1_odbc_3.0.0_x86_64_linux.tar.gz -C sqream_odbc64
   

   Take note of the directory where the driver was unpacked. For example, /home/rhendricks/sqream_odbc64

2. Locate the .odbc.ini and .odbcinst.ini files, using odbcinst -j.

   1. In .odbcinst.ini, add the following lines to register the driver (change the highlighted paths to match your specific driver):

      [ODBC Drivers]
      SqreamODBCDriver=Installed
      
      [SqreamODBCDriver]
      Description=Driver DSII SqreamODBC 64bit
      Driver=/home/rhendricks/sqream_odbc64/sqream_odbc64.so
      Setup=/home/rhendricks/sqream_odbc64/sqream_odbc64.so
      APILevel=1
      ConnectFunctions=YYY
      DriverODBCVer=03.80
      SQLLevel=1
      IconvEncoding=UCS-4LE
      

   2. In .odbc.ini, add the following lines to configure the DSN (change the highlighted parameters to match your installation):

      [ODBC Data Sources]
      MyTest=SqreamODBCDriver
      
      [MyTest]
      Description=64-bit Sqream ODBC
      Driver=/home/rhendricks/sqream_odbc64/sqream_odbc64.so
      Server="127.0.0.1"
      Port="5000"
      Database="raviga"
      Service=""
      User="rhendricks"
      Password="Tr0ub4dor&3"
      Cluster=false
      Ssl=false
      

      Parameters are in the form of parameter = value. For details about the parameters that can be set for each DSN, see the section ODBC DSN Parameters.

   3. Create a file called .sqream_odbc.ini for managing the driver settings and logging. This file should be created alongside the other files, and add the following lines (change the highlighted parameters to match your installation):

      # Note that this default DriverManagerEncoding of UTF-32 is for iODBC. unixODBC uses UTF-16 by default.
      # If unixODBC was compiled with -DSQL_WCHART_CONVERT, then UTF-32 is the correct value.
      # Execute 'odbc_config --cflags' to determine if you need UTF-32 or UTF-16 on unixODBC
      [Driver]
      DriverManagerEncoding=UTF-16
      DriverLocale=en-US
      ErrorMessagesPath=/home/rhendricks/sqream_odbc64/ErrorMessages
      LogLevel=0
      LogNamespace=
      LogPath=/tmp/
      ODBCInstLib=libodbcinst.so
      

Install the driver dependencies

Add the ODBC driver path to LD_LIBRARY_PATH:

$ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/home/rhendricks/sqream_odbc64/lib

You can also add this previous command line to your ~/.bashrc file in order to keep this installation working between reboots without re-entering the command manually

Testing the connection

Test the driver using isql.

If the DSN created is called MyTest as the example, run isql in this format:

$ isql MyTest

ODBC DSN Parameters

Item	Default	Description
Data Source Name	None	An easily recognizable name that you’ll use to reference this DSN.
Description	None	A description of this DSN for your convenience. This field can be left blank
User	None	Username of a role to use for connection. For example, User="rhendricks"
Password	None	Specifies the password of the selected role. For example, User="Tr0ub4dor&3"
Database	None	Specifies the database name to connect to. For example, Database="master"
Service	sqream	Specifices service queue to use. For example, Service="etl". Leave blank (Service="") for default service sqream.
Server	None	Hostname of the SQreamDB worker. For example, Server="127.0.0.1" or Server="sqream.mynetwork.co"
Port	None	TCP port of the SQreamDB worker. For example, Port="5000" or Port="3108" for the load balancer
Cluster	false	Connect via load balancer (use only if exists, and check port). For example, Cluster=true
Ssl	false	Specifies SSL for this connection. For example, Ssl=true
DriverManagerEncoding	UTF-16	Depending on how unixODBC is installed, you may need to change this to UTF-32.
ErrorMessagesPath	None	Location where the driver was installed. For example, ErrorMessagePath=/home/rhendricks/sqream_odbc64/ErrorMessages.
LogLevel	0	Set to 0-6 for logging. Use this setting when instructed to by SQreamDB Support. For example, LogLevel=1 0 = Disable tracing 1 = Fatal only error tracing 2 = Error tracing 3 = Warning tracing 4 = Info tracing 5 = Debug tracing 6 = Detailed tracing

Limitations

Please note that the SQreamDB ODBC connector does not support the use of ARRAY data types. If your database schema includes ARRAY columns, you may encounter compatibility issues when using ODBC to connect to the database.