Connecting a Django application to a Microsoft SQL Server database from Debian GNU/Linux

HOWTO.md

1. Install and register the FreeTDS driver for unixODBC.

    apt-get install tdsodbc
    odbcinst -i -d -f /usr/share/tdsodbc/odbcinst.ini
   

2. (Optional) Test the DSN-less connection with pyodbc.

    apt-get install python-pyodbc
   
    >>> import pyodbc
    >>> pyodbc.connect("DRIVER=FreeTDS;SERVER=...;PORT=1433;UID=...;PWD=...;DATABASE=...")
    <pyodbc.Connection object at ...>
   
    apt-get remove python-pyodbc
   

3. In your project's virtualenv, install django-pyodbc.

    apt-get install python-dev unixodbc-dev
    # If you have an old version of pip:
    pip install django-pyodbc
    # If you have a recent version of pip:
    pip install --allow-external pyodbc --all-unverified pyodbc django-pyodbc
   

4. Edit the DATABASES setting in your Django project.

    DATABASES = {
        '...': {
            'ENGINE': 'django_pyodbc',
            'NAME': '...',
            'HOST': '...',
            'PORT': 1433,
            'USER': '...',
            'PASSWORD': '...',
            'OPTIONS': {
                'host_is_server': True,
            }
        }
    }
   

5. Test the connection in ./manage.py shell.

    >>> from django.db import connection
    >>> cursor = connection.cursor()
    >>> cursor.execute("SELECT 2 + 2")
    <pyodbc.Cursor object at ...>
    >>> cursor.fetchall()
    [(4,)]
    >>> cursor.close()