Documentation

Using client tools to connect to Babelfish

You can use a SQL Server client to connect with Babelfish on the TDS port. When connecting from a Windows system, SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) or sqlcmd are good choices of clients. If you are connecting to the TDS port from a Linux system, sqlcmd is a good choice.

Other clients that speak the TDS protocol can also be used, but are not officially supported by Babelfish. On Linux, these include the FreeTDS command line tool tsql.

You can use any PostgreSQL client to connect to Babelfish on the PostgreSQL port. psql and pgAdmin are examples of open-source clients that run on Windows and Linux platforms and speak the PostgreSQL protocol.

Using sqlcmd to connect to the DB instance

The most common way to connect to and interact with Babelfish is with the SQL Server sqlcmd utility, as shown in the following.

sqlcmd -S host.sample.com,1433 -U PUT_USER_HERE -P PUT_PASSWORD_HERE -d PUT_DBNAME_HERE

Where:

• -S is the server name and port of the DB instance.
• -U is the login name of the user.
• -P is the password associated with the user.
• -d is the database that is selected initially.

After connecting with sqlcmd, you can use familiar T-SQL syntax to create and manage database objects.

Using SSMS to connect

SSMS is one of the most commonly used clients to connect to Babelfish.

In the following procedure, you connect to your Babelfish database by using SSMS. You can use the SSMS query editor to connect to a Babelfish database. Currently, you can not connect using the SSMS Object Explorer.

Connecting with SSMS

1. Open the Connect to Server dialog by doing one of the following:

   • Choose “New Query”.
   • If the Query Editor is open, choose “Query” – “Connection” – “Connect”.

2. Provide the following information for your database:

   • For “Server type”, choose “Database Engine”.

   • For “Server name”, enter the DNS name. For example, your server name should look similar to the following:

     host.example.com,1433
     

   • For “Authentication”, choose “SQL Server Authentication”.

   • For “Login”, enter the user name that you chose to use when you created your database.

   • For “Password”, enter the password corresponding to that user name.

   • Optionally, choose “Options”, and then choose the “Connection Properties” tab.

   • For “Connect to database”, specify the name of the database to connect to, and choose “Connect”.

3. If a message appears indicating that SSMS can’t apply connection strings, choose “OK”.

Limitations

As previously stated, currently you can not connect using the SSMS Object Explorer.

Using tsql to connect

tsql is a command line tool that is shipped as part of FreeTDS. It allows you to connect and to interact with Babelfish (or any other TDS enabled data source) from your Linux terminal.

Here is an example how to connect to Babelfish with tsql:

tsql -S database.example.com -p 1433 -U postgres -P secretpassword

For information about using tsql, consult the FreeTDS documentation.

Note that tsql is not officially supported.

Using psql to connect

You can also use PostgreSQL’s psql to connect to Babelfish. psql has to connect to the PostgreSQL port (by default 5432), and you will have to use PostgreSQL SQL syntax instead of T-SQL.

Here is an example how to connect with psql:

psql -h database.example.com -p 5432 -U postgres -d dbname

Note that Babelfish ships with a modified version of psql, which is intended for use by Babelfish development. This version can produce incorrect results, and should not be used in production.