Connect to Microsoft SQL Server (FireDAC)

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Go Up to Database Connectivity (FireDAC)

This topic describes how to connect to Microsoft SQL Server.

Supported Versions

The FireDAC native driver supports Microsoft SQL Server Standard and Express editions version 2000 and later, and Microsoft SQL Azure. For a description of how to connect to Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition, see Connect to Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition.

Client Software

Windows Client Software

FireDAC requires one of the Microsoft SQL Server x86 or x64 ODBC drivers to be installed on the workstation:

  • SQL Server ODBC driver as the connectivity for SQL Server 2000. Most likely, the ODBC driver is already installed on your workstation. If not, see details.
  • SQL Native Client as the connectivity for SQL Server 2000 and 2005. We strongly recommend that you have SQL Native Client installed, if your application has to work with SQL Server 2005. See Microsoft SQL Server Native Client.
  • SQL Server Native Client NN.N as the connectivity for SQL Server 2000, 2005, 2008, 2012, and SQL Azure. We strongly recommend that you have SQL Server Native Client NN.N installed, if your application has to work with SQL Server 2008, 2012, or SQL Azure. See Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Native Client.
  • SQL Server Native Client 11.0 as the connectivity for LocalDB.
  • ODBC Driver 13 as the connectivity for SQL Server 2008, 2008 R2, 2012, 2014, and 2016, and SQL Azure.

Note: SQL Server Native Client 10.0 (SQL Server 2008) may fail to call a stored procedure, when it is connected to SQL Server 2000. The symptom of this issue is the error message "Incorrect Syntax near to {". In this case, use the ODBC driver from the SQL Server 2000 or 2005 distribution.

If the SQL Server ODBC driver has not been installed properly, an exception is raised when you try to connect: 

[FireDAC][Phys][ODBC][Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Data source name not found and no default driver specified

OS X Client Software

FireDAC requires:

  • The UnixODBC (libodbc.dylib) x86 ODBC driver manager library.
  • The FreeTDS (libtdsodbc.dylib) x86 ODBC driver.

FreeTDS can be transferred from CVS into a folder in your home directory (more 1) (more 2). To install FreeTDS on OS X, use the commands: 

cvs -z3 -d:pserver:[email protected]:/cvsroot/freetds checkout -P freetdsc
cd freetds
./autogen.sh
./configure --with-tdsver=8.0 --with-unixodbc=/usr/local
make
sudo make install
echo [FreeTDS] > tds.driver.template
echo Description=v0.82 with protocol v8.0 >> tds.driver.template
echo Driver=/usr/local/lib/libtdsodbc.so >> tds.driver.template
odbcinst -i -d -f tds.driver.template
cd ..

Note that you may also need to install the gawk utility. At this point, you can configure a ODBC DSN or test the FireDAC connection.

Note that the FreeTDS ODBC driver is not that efficient and stable as the original Microsoft ODBC driver.

Linux Client Software

FireDAC requires the unixODBC 64-bit ODBC driver manager library and the Microsoft ODBC Driver 11 for SQL Server on Linux.

To install the Microsoft ODBC Driver 11 for SQL Server on Linux:

  1. On Ubuntu Server 16.04 LTS, run the following commands: 
    sudo apt-get install openssl libkrb5-3 libc6 e2fsprogs
sudo ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcrypto.so.1.0.0 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcrypto.so.10
sudo ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libssl.so.1.0.0    /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libssl.so.10
wget http://download.microsoft.com/download/B/C/D/BCDD264C-7517-4B7D-8159-C99FC5535680/RedHat6/msodbcsql-11.0.2270.0.tar.gz
tar -xavf msodbcsql-11.0.2270.0.tar.gz
sudo bash msodbcsql-11.0.2270.0/install.sh install --accept-license --force
  2. On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, download the corresponding installer and follow the official installation instructions.

Driver Linkage

To link the driver:

Connection Definition Parameters

To connect to the Microsoft SQL Server DBMS, most applications require that you specify the DriverID, Server, Database, OSAuthent, User_Name, and Password parameters (see Defining Connection (FireDAC) for details).

DriverID=MSSQL

Parameter Description Example value
Server Name of a server running SQL Server on the network. The value must be either the name of a server on the network or the name of a SQL Server Client Network Utility advanced server entry.

When you connect to the SQL Azure, you have to prepend the server name with the "tcp:" prefix.

Note: The alternative TPC/IP port may be specified after a server name, separated by the comma.

Note: To connect to a named instance on Linux, the TPC/IP port must be specified after a server name, separated by the comma. Do not specify the instance name.
  • 127.0.0.1\SQLEXPRESS
  • SrvHost, 4000
  • tcp:nasdfert6.database.windows.net
Port Only for OS X. Specifies the port where the SQL Server is listening.

For the Windows platform the port may be specified after a comma in the Server parameter value. For example, Server=host, port. The default port is 1433.

Database Name of the default database for the connection. If the Database is not specified, the default database defined for the login is used. Northwind
OSAuthent

Controls the authentication mode:

  • Yes -- use Windows authentication.
  • No -- use DBMS authentication. This is the default value.
 No
User_Name The SQL Server login name, if OSAuthent=No.

When you connect to the SQL Azure, you have to append the "@<server>" suffix to your user name.

  • sa
  • addemo@nasdfert6
Password The SQL Server login password, if OSAuthent=No.

Note that the passwords with both '{' and '}' are not supported.

Network Name of a network library dynamic-link library. The name does not need to include the path and must not include the .dll file name extension. dbnmpntw
Address Network address of the server running an instance of SQL Server. Address is usually the network name of the server, but can be other names, such as a pipe, or a TCP/IP port and socket address.
MARS

Controls the MARS (multiple active result sets) support in a connection:

  • Yes -- MARS is enabled for a connection. This is the default value.
  • No -- MARS is disabled.

MARS is a feature supported by SQL 2005 and later, or by SQL Azure. Note that enabling the MARS feature might result in performance degradation.

For information about MARS, see: Using Multiple Active Result Sets (MARS)

No
Workstation Workstation ID. Typically, this is the network name of the computer on which the application resides (optional). If specified, this value is stored in the master.dbo.sysprocesses column hostname and is returned by sp_who and the Transact-SQL HOST_NAME function. Bookkeeper1
Language SQL Server language name (optional). When connecting to a SQL Server with multiple languages, Language specifies which set of messages are used for the connection.
Encrypt

Controls the network traffic encryption:

  • Yes -- network traffic is encrypted.
  • No -- no encryption is used. This is the default value.
 Yes
LoginTimeout Controls the amount of time, in seconds, before an application times out while attempting to establish a connection. 0 specifies an infinite wait (default value). 30
VariantFormat

Controls the SQL_VARIANT data type representation:

  • String -- values are represented as dtWideString. A string value is returned as a hex string, numbers as strings, and so on. This is the default value.
  • Binary -- values are represented as dtByteString with raw data presentation. A string value is returned as a string with original encoding, numbers in binary format, and so on.
 Binary
ExtendedMetadata

Controls the extended description of the query result sets:

  • True -- FireDAC is getting a field origin table and column additional to the other column attributes. Setting this option to True may slow down a dataset opening.
  • False -- FireDAC uses the restricted information about the query columns. This is the default value.
 True
ApplicationName Name of the application. If specified, this value is stored in the master.dbo.sysprocesses column program_name and is returned by sp_who and the Transact-SQL APP_NAME function. AllBooks
ODBCAdvanced Allows you to specify any other additional ODBC connection parameter value. MARS_Connection=no;Regional=yes
MetaDefCatalog Default database name. The Design time code excludes the catalog name from the object name if it is equal to MetaDefCatalog. Northwind
MetaDefSchema Default schema name. The Design time code excludes the schema name from the object name if it is equal to MetaDefSchema. dbo
MetaCaseIns

Controls the metadata case sensitivity:

  • True -- a case-insensitive metadata search is used.
  • False -- depends on the database collation. This is the default value.
 True
MetaCaseInsCat

Controls the SQL Server catalog names case sensitivity. This parameter can take one of the following values:

  • Choose -- lets FireDAC automatically detect the catalog names case sensitivity. This is the default value.
  • False -- the catalog names are case-sensitive.
  • True -- the catalog names are case-insensitive.
 True

Use Cases

Using a Secure Connection

To use TLS/SSL encryption, pass the key-value pair TrustServerCertificate=yes on the value of the ODBCAdvanced parameter: 

ODBCAdvanced=TrustServerCertificate=yes

Other Use Cases

  • Connect to the local SQL Server instance using SQL Server authentication:
DriverID=MSSQL
Server=127.0.0.1
Database=Northwind
User_Name=sa
MetaDefSchema=dbo
MetaDefCatalog=Northwind
  • Connect to SQL Express 2005 using Windows authentication:
DriverID=MSSQL
Server=DA\SQLEXPRESS
Database=Northwind
OSAuthent=Yes
MARS=no
  • Connect to SQL Azure. Note the "@<server>" suffix in User_Name and the "tcp:" prefix in the Server parameters:
DriverID=MSSQL
Server=tcp:nasdfert6.database.windows.net
Database=Northwind
User_Name=addemo@nasdfert6
Password=asd123zxc
Encrypt=Yes
MetaDefSchema=dbo
MetaDefCatalog=Northwind
  • Connect to LocalDB:
DriverID=MSSQL
Server=(localdb)\\v11.0
Database=master
OSAuthent=Yes
  • Connect to LocalDB and attach a database file:
Server=(localdb)\\v11.0
DriverID=MSSQL
ODBCAdvanced=AttachDbFileName=C:\\Users\\Alex\\ADDemo.mdf

See Also

Samples

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