Connecting to Microsoft SQL Server using ODBC from Ubuntu Server

Previously I showed how to connect to Microsoft SQL Server in PHP using mssql_connect(). This works but is not as neat as using ODBC.

Unfortunately when writing this guide I got stuck at the last hurdle when trying to use ODBC and adodb in PHP. I could connect to the database using:

include(‘adodb5/adodb.inc.php’);
$connection=& ADONewConnection(‘odbc_mssql’);
$connection->Connect(‘datasourcename’,'username’,'password’);

Or using odbc_connect:

$connection= odbc_connect(‘datasourcename’, ‘username’, ‘password’);

But selecting data using “$connection->GetAll()” or “odbc_exec()” just resulted in a page that never loaded. Fortunately the ODBC part worked, there was just something I haven’t figured out yet with ODBC in PHP.

This guide will show you how to set up ODBC in Ubuntu using FreeTDS to talk to Microsoft SQL Server. I am trying to work out why the server connects fine but won’t execute queries in PHP. When I find out why I will update this post. To create this guide I went off a post on Ubuntu forums with some additions. There are a lot of steps, but at least some of the programs you use along the way allow you to check things are working as expected before you come to test in PHP.

First you need to install php5-odbc in Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install php5-odbc

Now you need to add freetds to create a connection and talk to your server, plus a few other handy programs:

sudo apt-get install unixodbc unixodbc-dev freetds-dev sqsh tdsodbc

Edit the example server details or create a new one in /etc/freetds/freetds.conf to point to your server (in my case I called it “sqlserver”):

[sqlserver]
host = ip.add.ress
port = 1433
tds version = 7.0

You can check the connection is set up using sqsh:

sqsh -S sqlserver -U username -P password

Alternatively, you can connect directly to the ip.add.ress:

sqsh -S ip.add.ress -U username -P password

Now in sqsh you can select from a table in your SQL Server database and display it on screen by entering your query and “go” on the next line:

1> select * from databasename.dbo.table
2> go

Hopefully you should see your data on screen. The next step is to configure ODBC so check where the config files are located using:

odbcinst -j

Which should say “DRIVERS: /etc/odbcinst.ini” and “SYSTEM DATA SOURCES: /etc/odbc.ini” which are the files we will be editing.

Now we set up the FreeTDS driver so it can be used by ODBC so open “/etc/odbcinst.ini” (was a blank file in my case) and add:

[FreeTDS]
Description = TDS driver (Sybase/MS SQL)
Driver = /usr/lib/odbc/libtdsodbc.so
Setup = /usr/lib/odbc/libtdsS.so
CPTimeout =
CPReuse =
FileUsage = 1

Open “/etc/odbc.ini” and create the system data source “datasourcename” that we will use everywhere (including in PHP):

[datasourcename]
Driver = FreeTDS
Description  = ODBC connection via FreeTDS
Trace = No
Servername = sqlserver
Database = databasename

It’s important to note that “Servername” here refers to the server details in /etc/freetds/freetds.conf NOT to an IP address.

You can test the connection works using isql:

isql -v datasourcename username password

Now you can use this data source “datasourcename” in PHP, which is the goal! To test the connection works I tried odbc_connect():

$connection = odbc_connect(‘datasourcename’, ‘username’, ‘password’);
if (!$connection) die(“Connection failed”);
else echo “works”;

Which does work. Now I just need to work out why queries such as the following cause PHP to hang:

$query = odbc_exec($connection, ‘SELECT column FROM table’) or die (odbc_errormsg());

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