Attempting to connect to MSSQL with django-pyodbc-azure results in file not found error

Question

I think my question is more or less a duplicate of Trying to query SQL Server from django running on Linux - Can't open lib '/path/to/libtdsodbc.so', but the answer there is wholly not useful.

I am using the following things:

1. Ubuntu 15.04
2. Python3
3. Django 1.9 (installed via pip3)
4. freetds-dev 0.91-6build1 installed via apt-get
5. django-pyodbc-azure/django-pyodbc installed via pip3
6. MSSQL 2012

When attempting to connect, doing a python3 manage.py inspectdb I get the following stack trace:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/django/db/backends/base/base.py", line 199, in ensure_connection
    self.connect()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/django/db/backends/base/base.py", line 171, in connect
    self.connection = self.get_new_connection(conn_params)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/sql_server/pyodbc/base.py", line 302, in get_new_connection
    timeout=timeout)
pyodbc.Error: ('01000', "[01000] [unixODBC][Driver Manager]Can't open lib 'FreeTDS' : file not found (0) (SQLDriverConnect)")

The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 10, in <module>
    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 350, in execute_from_command_line
    utility.execute()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 342, in execute
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 348, in run_from_argv
    self.execute(*args, **cmd_options)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 399, in execute
    output = self.handle(*args, **options)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/django/core/management/commands/inspectdb.py", line 25, in handle
    for line in self.handle_inspection(options):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/django/core/management/commands/inspectdb.py", line 38, in handle_inspection
    with connection.cursor() as cursor:
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/django/db/backends/base/base.py", line 231, in cursor
    cursor = self.make_debug_cursor(self._cursor())
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/django/db/backends/base/base.py", line 204, in _cursor
    self.ensure_connection()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/django/db/backends/base/base.py", line 199, in ensure_connection
    self.connect()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/django/db/utils.py", line 95, in __exit__
    six.reraise(dj_exc_type, dj_exc_value, traceback)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/django/utils/six.py", line 685, in reraise
    raise value.with_traceback(tb)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/django/db/backends/base/base.py", line 199, in ensure_connection
    self.connect()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/django/db/backends/base/base.py", line 171, in connect
    self.connection = self.get_new_connection(conn_params)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/sql_server/pyodbc/base.py", line 302, in get_new_connection
    timeout=timeout)
django.db.utils.Error: ('01000', "[01000] [unixODBC][Driver Manager]Can't open lib 'FreeTDS' : file not found (0) (SQLDriverConnect)")

I've edited base.py to print out the connection string it's using, which is:

DRIVER=FreeTDS;DATABASE=test;PWD=test;UID=sa;PORT=1433;SERVER=10.13.36.223

My settings.py for the database looks like:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'sql_server.pyodbc',
        'NAME': 'test',
    'USER': 'sa',
    'PASSWORD': 'test',
    'HOST': '10.13.36.223',
    'PORT': '1433',
    'AUTOCOMMIT': True,
    'OPTIONS' : {
        'host_is_server': True
        }
    }
}

My assumption is that the DRIVER portion of the connection str should be the fully qualified path to the executable for the odbc driver, and that right now it's set to "FreeTDS", which doesn't exist as a file. My questions then are:

1. If my assumption is correct, how do I change the value for the driver?
2. If my assumption is incorrect, what is actually wrong, and how do I solve this?

Answer 1

I needed to do the following:

1. sudo apt-get install tdsodbc
2. edit /etc/odbcinst.ini to include the following:

.

  [FreeTDS]
  Description = TDS Driver for MSSQL
  driver = /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/odbc/libtdsodbc.so
  setup =  /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/odbc/libtdsS.so

And it worked.

Answer 2

The above [FreeTDS] configuration is very helpful.

In settings.py DATABASE session, I also add drivers version as well as unicode results setups. Here is my config:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'sql_server.pyodbc',
        'NAME': 'myDataBaseNameInMSSQLServer',
        'USER': 'mssql-user-with-SQL-authentication',
        'PASSWORD': 'password',
        'HOST': 'server-host-name-or-IP\\SQLEXPRESS',
        'PORT': '1433',
        'OPTIONS' : {
            'AUTOCOMMIT': True,
            'host_is_server': True,
            'unicode_results': True,
            'driver': 'FreeTDS',
            'extra_params' : 'TDS_VERSION=8.0',
            }
    }
}

For SQL Express, you will also need to Google search for how to make that instance available for remote connection.