JDBC Connection Survival Guide to dborchestra for SQL Server

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1 JDBC Connection Survival Guide to dborchestra for SQL Server Opening Rant From the CEO Connecting always seems to be a big pain! ODBC, RDO, ADO, JDBC...you name it. Fortunately once you get connected the hard part is over (until you upgrade your DBMS version or product and forget the connection information :-). Bottom line for us is if you cannot get connected you cannot benefit from our tool. We also lose having you as a customer. We did not invent JDBC but we use it. It is also easier (believe it or not) than ODBC as it does not require any external setup. I will get of my soapbox now. This guide is meant to get you connected. I believe it is very thorough and covers 90% of the scenarios to JDBC connectivity to a local instance of SQL Server on your PC. Eric Matthews CEO / Chief Software Designer DataExpressions Please Note!: Unless specifically mentioned this survival guide applies generically to versions 2005, 2000 and 7.0 of SQL Server. Connection Screen To create a JDBC connection to SQL Server using dborchestra requires properly filling in 4 parameter settings. One is easy. This leaves three to deal with. Sounds simple ehhh?

2 Connecting to a Local Installation of SQL Server We are assuming that you setup SQL Server on your local machine. Otherwise your DBA should be able to assist you. Most support we end up providing is to developers that are trying to make a JDBC connection from an instance of SQL Server on their PC. Again, connecting is usually a royal pain. IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING USE OF TERMINOLOGY: For the purpose of this document the terms Host name, Server name, and Instance name mean the same thing. Determining / Changing SQL Server Authentication You need to determine if you have installed your local instance of SQL Server authentication as Windows Authentication or Mixed mode (both Windows authentication and SQL Server). You will not be able to make a JDBC connection if you have only chosen Windows Authentication! Version 7.0 or Access the Enterprise Manager 2. Right click on your local SQL Server Instance. Select Properties 3. Click on Securities tab

3 Version Access the Server Management Studio 2. Right click on your local SQL Server Instance. Select Properties 3. Click on Security If you had to change the authentication mode you will need to stop and start SQL Server. You also need to know the sa password. Enter a Connection ID This is a name that you get to makeup. We recommend that you use the following naming convention. <MachineName + database name>.conn For example: Local_TrainingDB.conn

4 Enter User Name and Password Ensure you have the User Name and Password. Typically, sa is the default system administrator user name. The password we are afraid we cannot assist you with. Figuring out the Host Name Please note: You can use the SQL Server Finder utility to help you determine connection information. This utility come as part of the standard dborchestra package. It is also available at the following url. We are assuming that you can access your instance of SQL Server using the native SQL Server tools like Management Studio or the Enterprise Manager. If you cannot connect to your database using the native Microsoft tools then you should not proceed. Also, it is optimal if you make the connection by actually supplying the login name and password as this will validate that these are correct. Assuming you can connect all we need to do now is get you connected using JDBC. We supply the driver required to connect to your SQL Server database so you do not need to worry about figuring out how to install or configure this as it was already done as part of the installation of dborchestra. First Thing to Try: Use SQL Server Instance Name As The Host Name Try to connect using the name of the server or server instance. You can get the server (or instance) name from the SQL Server log file. Typically SQL Server installs under the Program Files folder. The file is named ERRORLOG. Open this file in a text editor. You can find the server name in this file. It will be annotated in the log similar to the example below. Server name is 'ericm\sqlexpress' Find your server name and cut and paste it into the Host name field (minus the quotes) Next Things to Try if above did not get you connected Assuming you were not successful above. Back in the ERRORLOG you should be able to find the tcp port (or ports) that you are connecting through. If the port number is different than 1433, try to connect specify the port number as in the example below: ericm\sqlexpress:1476

5 If this does not work... Next, we need to figure out the tcp/ip address associated with our server instance. We can do this using netstat. You can now replace the host name with the actual address and port number. For example :3306. Hopefully this will get you connected. Still not connected? READ BELOW IN ITS ENTIRETY TCP can be a funny animal. We have seen situations where one can connect to their local instance when they are not connected to a network, but cannot connect to their local instance once they connect up to a LAN/WAN. Additionally, if you are making a VPN connection somewhere it is very possible you may not be able to connect to the local instance of your database while the VPN connection is active. If you are on a VPN or network connection disconnect and try the steps above. You should also reboot your machine and retry. It is also possible to install SQL Server using named pipes. In fact (and unfortunately) this is the default way of installing version 7.0 and JDBC requires tcp/ip for connectivity! dborchestra uses JDBC. SQL Server lets you add tcp/ip connectivity after installation, but we have never been successful in getting this to work ourselves. In every situation where the installation was only for named pipes we had to do a complete reinstall. When doing so either choose mixed mode, or tcp/ip. We have never met a real world non-development SQL Server implementation that uses named pipes. Okay, I am running 2005 and I did everything you said and am still having problems what now? Run the SQL Server Surface Area Configuration tool.

6 I am still not connecting. What Now? Please contact us either through our users forum or by at Provide us with the results/outcomes for all of the steps above. Also, send us your ERRORLOG file so we can review it. We would also like to know the Windows OS you are using.