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/AlloyDBODBCDriverforUnix.deb 

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

rpm -ivh /path/to/driver/AlloyDBODBCDriverforUnix.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-alloydb/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.

Connecting to AlloyDB

The following connection properties are required in order to connect to AlloyDB.

• Server: The host name or IP of the server hosting the AlloyDB database.
• Port (optional): The port of the server hosting the AlloyDB database. This property is set to 5432 by default.
• User: The user which will be used to authenticate with the AlloyDB server.
• Password: The password which will be used to authenticate with the AlloyDB server.
• Database (optional): The database to connect to when connecting to the AlloyDB Server. If this is not set, the user's default database will be used.

Authenticating to AlloyDB

Standard Authentication

Standard authentication (using the user/password combination supplied earlier) is the default form of authentication.

No further action is required to leverage Standard Authentication to connect.

pg_hba.conf Auth Schemes

There are additional methods of authentication supported by the driver which must be enabled in the pg_hba.conf file on the AlloyDB server.

You may find instructions about authentication setup on the AlloyDB Server here.

MD5

You can authenticate using MD5 password verification by setting the auth-method in the pg_hba.conf file to md5.

SASL

The driver can authenticate by verifying the password with SASL (particularly, SCRAM-SHA-256).

To use this authentication method, set the auth-method in the pg_hba.conf file to scram-sha-256.

Kerberos

The authentication with Kerberos is initiated by AlloyDB Server when the CData ODBC Driver for AlloyDB is trying to connect to it. Set up Kerberos on the AlloyDB Server to activate this authentication method. Once you have Kerberos authentication set up on the AlloyDB server, see Using Kerberos for details regarding how to authenticate with Kerberos by the driver.

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-alloydb/lib/cdata.odbc.alloydb.ini':

[Driver]
AnsiCodePage = 932