Installation guide

3. Access Databases using mxODBC
administrative overhead, eGenix has developed a general solution to the problem
for Python applications, the client-server product called eGenix mxODBC
Connect.
eGenix mxODBC Connect provides a highly portable client side Python interface
module mxODBC Connect Client which connects to a server side service
application called mxODBC Connect Server.
On the client side, the mxODBC Connect Client provides an interface which is
almost fully compatible to the standard mxODBC Python interface, so you can
easily port applications using mxODBC or other DB-API compatible adapters to
the mxODBC Connect Client.
On the server side, the mxODBC Connect Server takes care of managing the
incoming network connections from the mxODBC Connect Clients and interfaces
directly to the database using an ODBC driver on the server machine. Since the
mxODBC Connect Server is typically installed on the database server itself, the
ODBC driver can communicate with the database using low-level and high
performance interfaces such as shared memory, pipes, etc.
Using the mxODBC Connect product, you no longer need to search and install
ODBC drivers for all your client platforms. Instead, you just need one ODBC
driver installation on the server which is then shared by all clients.
The mxODBC Connect also provides better performance, since it doesn't require
as many network roundtrips to the server as a low-level ODBC driver on the client
side needs in order to provide the database connectivity.
Please see our website http://www.egenix.com/
for more information on mxODBC
Connect.
3.3.3 Installing Unix ODBC Drivers
Please consult the documentation of your database for ODBC driver installation
instructions.
These often have to be installed by running a shell script or using the system
packaging manager.
There are no standards for the driver directory location. Some drivers install in
/opt, others in /usr/local, yet others can be unzipped anywhere in the system,
provided the linker is setup to find the driver files.
3.3.4 Setting up an ODBC Data Source
Data sources are setup using the ODBC manager GUI tools on Unix or by editing
the respective ODBC configuration files.
25