DSN-less ODBC Connections on Linux

On the Rails Wiki Connect To MicrosoftSQLServer From Rails On Linux Box page a database.yml sporting a DSN-less connection is shown like this:

	database_name:
	adapter: sqlserver
	mode: ODBC
	dsn: 'DRIVER=/usr/local/lib/libtdsodbc.so;TDS_Version=8.0;SERVER=Your_Server_Name;DATABASE=Your_Database_Name;Port=1433;uid=Your_UID;pwd=Your_PWD;'

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That won't work on my Linux box given the way unixODBC and FreeTDS installed themselves. Looking at that you might think the quick solution is just to correct the path to the driver file but that won't fix the problem either. This is where the head scratching starts. Apparently when installing on Mac OS X ODBC puts an entry in the /etc/odbcinst.ini that is labeled [/path/to/the/driver/file.so] (or maybe that setup actually works with a path, but I don't think so). On my Ubuntu Linux box, the only entry in /etc/odbcinst.ini is labeled [FreeTDS]. So getting the DSN-less connection to work is as simple as using:

	database_name:
	adapter: sqlserver
	mode: ODBC
	dsn: 'DRIVER=FreeTDS;TDS_Version=8.0;SERVER=Your_Server_Name;DATABASE=Your_Database_Name;Port=1433;uid=Your_UID;pwd=Your_PWD;'

view raw gistfile1.yml hosted with ❤ by GitHub