Django-pydobc SQL server connection problems on windows

Question

Another developer and I are setting up a django (v1.4.2) project using a legacy SQL server database (SQLEXPRESS) on another server. So far, we have been able to connect to the database from linux and mac using django-pyodbc, and from a laptop running windows 7 using django-mssql. I would like to use django-pyodbc on the laptop to keep the environments in sync.

On the laptop:

• pyodbc (3.0.6) is installed and in a non-django .py script I can connect and run sql statements
• Downloaded django-pyodbc 1.4 by downloading the zip; I'm not sure I installed it right:
  • I unzipped the file, and ran the setup.py file in the top directory; it puts a sql_server directory in the /lib/site-packages directory
• Copied this sql_server directory to /django/db/backends
• Created a PYTHONPATH environment variable pointing to /django/db/backends/sql_server
  • not sure if it's supposed to point to /site-packages/sql_server instead?
• Created an ODBC Data Source (System DSN)
  • testing the connection option works
• Editted the DATABASE entry in settings.py to be almost exactly like the linux version (details below)

So, it doesn't work, and I get the following error message, and have no idea what to do next:

('08001', '[08001] [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][DBNETLIB]SQL Server does not exist or access denied. (17) (SQLDriverConnect); [01000] [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][DBNETLIB]ConnectionOpen (Connect()). (53); [01S00] [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver]Invalid connection string attribute (0)')

I setup the django settings.py file as like so:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sql_server.pyodbc',
        'NAME': 'test',
        'USER': 'test',
        'PASSWORD': 'something_else',
        'HOST': 'mssqlx',
        'PORT': '12345',
        'OPTIONS': {
            'driver': 'SQL Server',
        },
    },
}

On linux, my settings file has a DATABASES entry like so:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sql_server.pyodbc',
        'NAME': 'test',
        'USER': 'test',
        'PASSWORD': 'something_else',
        'HOST': 'mssqlx',       # ODBC DSN defined in /etc/freetds.conf
        'PORT': '12345',        # Probably unneeded.  Set in mssqlx
        'OPTIONS': {
            'driver': 'SQL Server',  # ODBC driver name in /etc/odbcinst.ini
            'extra_params': "TDS_VERSION=7.0"  # Probably unneeded.  Set in mssqlx
        }
    },
}

don't know if it will help solve this, but using django-mssql (which only runs on windows), the (working) entry is:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlserver_ado',
        'NAME': 'test',
        'USER': 'test',
        'PASSWORD': 'something_else',
        'HOST': '199.555.0.10',         # changed for this example
        'PORT': '12345',
        'OPTIONS': {'provider': 'SQLOLEDB'}
    },
}

Don't know what other info might help. Thank you for any help or insight you can offer.

----POST MORTEM ---- Here's what finally worked:

partial entry in settings for DATABASES:

    'default': {
        'ENGINE'    : 'django.db.backends.sql_server.pyodbc',
        'NAME'      : 'test_db_name',
        'USER'      : 'test_db_user_name',
        'PASSWORD'  : 'password',
        # ODBC DSN defined in /etc/freetds.conf
        'HOST'      : 'mssql_test',
        # Ignored for Windows; Required for Linux
        'OPTIONS'   : {
            # ODBC driver name in /etc/odbcinst.ini
            'driver': 'SQL Server',
            # NOTE: dsn option is added dynamically later, for Windows
        }
    },

# The ODBC DSN name specified above as DATABASES.default.HOST is ignored on
# Windows, where it must be specified as DATABASES.default.OPTIONS.dsn instead.
# However, we haven't found a way to make DATABASES.default.OPTIONS.dsn work in
# Linux (and probably the same for Mac).  It causes the error:
#    Data source name not found, and no default driver specified 
# Therefore we add it here, but only for Windows.
# Note: The username and pwd in the windows dsn file is apparently NOT used
#       (b/c server hosts both test and prod database in same MSSQL
#       instance, both test and prod dsn files happen to work - they have the
#       same ip address and port number, but different username/password's)
#
# On 64-bit Windows, with our current 32-bit version of pyodbc, the DSN
# must be created via:
#    C:\Windows\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe
# instead of the regular "ODBC Data Sources" app in Control Panel, which 
# invokes:
#    C:\Windows\system32\odbcad32.exe
#
#   os.name is...
#       nt      for Hans' laptop (Windows 7)
#       posix   for the "Amazon Linux AMI" (CentOS) on AWS
#       posix   for Fred's Mac
if os.name == 'nt':      # Windows
    DATABASES['cf']['OPTIONS']['dsn'] = 'mssql_test'

Answer 1

Try using https://github.com/michiya/django-pyodbc-azure. This should work on both Linux and Windows.

Then define your database settings as such:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'sql_server.pyodbc',
        'NAME': 'dbname',
        'HOST': 'dsn_entry',
        'PORT': 'port',
        'USER': '',
        'PASSWORD': 'pass',
        'OPTIONS': {
            'driver': 'FreeTDS',
            'dsn': 'dsn_entry',
            'host_is_server': True
        }
    }
}

Under Windows the 'driver' entry in OPTIONS should be:

'driver': 'SQL Native Client',

Edit: Oops, failed to see that the you had solved the problem. Leaving my answer here as reference.