This section describes how to set up ODBC connectivity and configure DSNs on several Linux distributions: Debian-based systems, like Ubuntu, and Red Hat Linux platforms, like Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Fedora.

Minimum Linux Versions

Here are the minimum supported versions for Red Hat-based and Debian-based systems:

OS	Min. Version
Ubuntu	18.04
Debian	10
RHEL	8
Fedora	28
SUSE	15

Installing the Driver Dependencies

Run the following commands as root or with sudo to install the necessary dependencies:

• Debian/Ubuntu:
  

  apt-get install libc6 libstdc++6 zlib1g libgcc1

• RHEL/Fedora:
  

  yum install glibc libstdc++ zlib libgcc

Installing the Driver

You can use standard package management systems to install the driver.

On Debian-based systems, like Ubuntu, run the following command with root or sudo:

dpkg -i /path/to/driver/setup/Microsoft SharePoint ExcelODBCDriverforUnix.deb 

On systems that support the RPM package format, run the following command with root or sudo:

rpm -ivh /path/to/driver/Microsoft SharePoint ExcelODBCDriverforUnix.rpm 

Licensing the Driver

Run the following commands to license the driver. To activate a trial, omit the <key> input.

cd /opt/cdata/cdata-odbc-driver-for-excelservices/bin/
sudo ./install-license.sh <key>

Connecting through the Driver Manager

The driver manager loads the driver and passes function calls from the application to the driver. You need to register the driver with the driver manager and you define DSNs in the driver manager's configuration files.

The driver installation registers the driver with the unixODBC driver manager and creates a system DSN. The unixODBC driver manager can be used from Python and from many other applications. Your application may embed another driver manager.

Creating the DSN

See Using unixODBC to install unixODBC and configure DSNs. See Using the DataDirect Driver Manager to create a DSN to connect to OBIEE, Informatica, and SAS.

This section provides the details for connecting SharePoint On Premises.

Connecting to a Workbook

Regardless of which edition of SharePoint you are using, set File to the Excel workbook. This path is relative to the following properties:

• Library: The Shared Documents library is used by default. You can use this property to specify another document library in your organization; for example, if you want to connect to OneDrive for Business, set this property to "Documents".
• Folder: You can use this property to specify a path to a subfolder in a library. The path is relative to the library name specified in Library.

Connecting to Spreadsheet Data as Tables

The driver detects the available tables based on the available objects in the underlying API.

The APIs surface different API objects; select the API based on the organization of your spreadsheets and your SharePoint version:

• OData: The OData API allows access to tables defined from Excel table objects (not ranges or spreadsheets), which you create by clicking Insert > Table in Excel. When connecting to the OData API, the driver may not return any tables if you do not have table objects defined in your workbook. Set UseRESTAPI to true to connect to spreadsheets or ranges as tables.
• REST: The REST API enables access to tables defined from Excel table objects, ranges, and spreadsheets. This is the default API. Requesting a large number of rows from ranges and spreadsheets is restricted by the REST API, and the driver limits the number of rows returned to 100 by default. The driver also defaults to detecting column names from the first row; set Header to disable this.

With DefineTables additionally set, you can define tables based on ranges, using the Excel range syntax. A range that is too large will be restricted by the API.

See Data Model for more information on how the driver detects tables and how to query them.

Connecting to SharePoint On Premises

Set the Url to your server's name or IP address. Additionally, set SharePointVersion and the authentication values.

To authenticate to SharePoint OnPremise, set AuthScheme to the authentication type and set User and Password, if necessary.

Note: When connecting to SharePoint On-Premises 2010, you must set UseRESTAPI to true.

• Windows (NTLM)

  This is the most common authentication type. As such, the driver is preconfigured to use NTLM as the default; simply set the Windows User and Password to connect.

• Kerberos

  Please see Using Kerberos for details on how to authenticate with Kerberos.

• Forms

  This allows authentication through a custom authentication method, instead of Active Directory. To use this authentication type, set AuthScheme to FORMS and set the User and Password.

• ADFS

  Set the AuthScheme to ADFS. The following connection properties need to be set:

  • User: Set this to the ADFS user.
  • Password: Set this to ADFS password for the user.
  • SSOLoginURL: Set this to the WS-trust endpoint of the ADFS server.
  The following SSOProperties are needed to authenticate to ADFS:
  • RelyingParty: The value of the relying party identifier on the ADFS server for Sharepoint.
  Below is an example connection string:
  

  AuthScheme=ADFS;User=ADFSUserName;Password=ADFSPassword;SSOLoginURL=https://<authority>/adfs/services/trust/2005/usernamemixed;SSO Properties ='RelyingParty=urn:sharepoint:sp2016;';

• Anonymous Access

  Set the AuthScheme to NONE along with the URL.

Set the Driver Encoding

The ODBC drivers need to specify which encoding to use with the ODBC Driver Manager. By default, the CData ODBC Drivers for Unix are configured to use UTF-16 which is compatible with unixODBC, but other Driver Managers may require alternative encoding.

Alternatively, if you are using the ODBC driver from an application that uses the ANSI ODBC API it may be necessary to set the ANSI code page. For example, to import Japanese characters in an ANSI application, you can specify the code page in the config file '/opt/cdata/cdata-odbc-driver-for-excelservices/lib/cdata.odbc.excelservices.ini':

[Driver]
AnsiCodePage = 932