Freetds (5) Linux Manual Page

freetds.conf – configuration file for FreeTDS

Synopsis

The freetds.conf file describes Sybase and Microsoft dataservers to the FreeTDS library. It comprises sections headed by a servername, followed by a list of connection properties denoted as name-value pairs. Defaults are defined via a Bq global section. This file supersedes the interfaces file that Sybase defines for the same purpose, although the latter is still supported.

Description

A section begins with a servername — the name of the server — in square brackets. The servername is chosen at the client’s descretion. (One exception: with Sybase ASA the servername must match the database name to be used.)

Sections contain properties, one per line, in the form

name = value

where name is the connection property to be described. Servernames and properties are not case sensitive. Values are case-preserving i.e., copied literally. Comments begin with either a semicolon (So ; Sc or pound sign ) (So # Sc and continue to end of line. Blank lines are ignored. Whitespace surrounding the ) So = Sc is ignored.

Properties

client charset

encoding of client data; overrides locale(1) settings

Domain:: iconv character set names
Default:: ISO-8859-1

connect timeout

seconds to wait for response from connect request

Domain:: 0 to MAX_INT
Default:: none

debug flags

logging granularity

Domain:: 32-bit integer
Default:: 0x4fff

dump file

specifies location of a logfile and turns on logging

Domain:: valid file name
Default:: none

dump file append

log data appended to file instead of re-writing for each connection

Domain:: yes/no
Default:: no

emulate little endian

forces big endian machines to act as little endian to communicate with Microsoft Servers

Domain:: yes/no
Default:: no

encryption

off: disables encryption (default)
request: use if available
required: allow encrypted connections only

host

Name of the host the dataserver is running on.

Domain:: host name or IP address
Default:: SYBASE

initial block size

maximum size of a protocol block

Domain:: multiple of 512
Default:: 512

instance

name of Microsoft SQL Server instance to connect to (supersedes port

Domain:: instance name
Default:: none

port

port number that the dataserver is listening to

Domain:: any valid port
Default:: TDS 5.0, 5000; TDS 7.0 and up, 1433

tds version

TDS protocol version to use

Domain:: 4.2, 5.0, 7.0, 8.0
Default:: –-with-tdsver value (5.0 if unspecified)

text size

default value of TEXTSIZE, in bytes

Domain:: 0 to 4,294,967,295
Default:: 4,294,967,295

timeout

seconds to wait for response to a query

Domain:: 0 to MAX_INT
Default:: none (wait forever)

Boolean property values may be denoted as on/off, true/false, or 1/0.

Debug Flags

The log’s granularity can be controlled with the debug flags property.

Value Ta Meaning
0x02 severe error
0x04 error
0x08 warning
0x10 network
0x20information level 1
0x40information level 2
0x80function trace and info
0x1000show pid
0x2000show time
0x4000show source level info (source file and line)
0x8000thread id (not implemented).

Names And Locations

The file is normally named
/etc/freetds.conf or ${HOME}/.freetds.conf That name can be overridden with the FREETDSCONF environment variable.

FreeTDS will search conf files for a servername in the following order:

a filename set programatically via dbsetifile() that is in .conf format
a filename in the environment variable FREETDSCONF that is in .conf format
${HOME}/.freetds.conf if extant
@sysconfdir@/freetds.conf

The search stops with the first file containing the servername.

If no conf file is found, FreeTDS searches for an interfaces file in the following order:

a filename set programatically via dbsetifile() that is in interfaces format
${HOME}/.interfaces
$SYBASE/interfaces (where $SYBASE is an environment variable)

If the requested servername is not found in any configuration file, the fallback mechanism is:

attempt to convert the name to an IP address with inet_addr(3), else
attempt to convert the name to an IP address with gethostbyname(3), else
attempt to look up the literal name “SYBASE”

Environment

FREETDSCONF: overrides name and location of the system-wide conf file
TDSDUMP: overrides the name and location of the FreeTDS log file
TDSDUMPCONFIG: specifies a name and location of a file that logs the search of configuration files
TDSHOST: overrides the host property
TDSPORT: overrides the port property
TDSQUERY: synonym for DSQUERY, the default servername
TDSVER: overrides the version specified in the freetds.conf

The environment variables TDSVER, TDSDUMP, TDSPORT, TDSQUERY, and TDSHOST override values set by a .conf or interfaces file.

Files

@sysconfdir@/freetds.conf , ${HOME}/.freetds.conf

History

.conf files first appeared with version 0.53 of FreeTDS.

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