port for ODBC client connection

[t1950]

ASA 11. 32 bit Win7 client. client firewall was turned off during the ODBC setup. client PC is in a remote office with a VPN(?) connection to the main office. the remote client pc can ping the sever from the command prompt.

main office has 2 db engines running (production and test). the remote client pc can connect to the production engine, which uses the default port 2638, WITHOUT specifying host=192.168.168.168 on the network tab in ODBC setup. the client CANNOT connect to the test db engine from the remote site.

the main office pc's can connect to both engines without host=... in the ODBC setup. i've double checked the spelling of the test engine and have tried the host=... with various combinations of DoBroadcast and specifying a port, and it didn't work. i've run into this before but can't remember if i used dobroadcast=direct, specified a port number, or both. to add insult to injury, i don't remember the customer and didn't save what i did to make it work.

thanks for the help.

Tom Mangano

[jeff_albion]

the remote client pc can ping the sever from the command prompt.

This is good - this means we have TCP connectivity and ICMP messages are being correctly propagated across the client/server network connection.

WITHOUT specifying host=192.168.168.168 on the network tab in ODBC setup. the client CANNOT connect to the test db engine from the remote site.

Yes, this is correct -- Broadcast UDP messages (the mechanism that the client/server uses to "discover" actively running database server names on the network) are generally not propagated across TCP/IP subnets (e.g. between your VPN and regular network).

i've run into this before but can't remember if i used dobroadcast=direct, specified a port number, or both.

Generally you would want to set up a direct link to the host/port from the client, but you actually have three solutions available:

• On the client database connection options, specify a direct TCP/IP host, and attempt to perform the UDP broadcasts against the specified 'HOST' (i.e. LINKS=tcpip(HOST=hostname.server.com;DOBROAD=DIRECT))

• On the client database connection options, specify a direct TCP/IP host and port, and disable the UDP broadcasts to look for running servers on the local network (i.e. LINKS=tcpip(HOST=hostname.server.com;PORT=2638;DOBROAD=NONE))

• Set up a UDP "repeater" across your VPN and client networks, by using the "dbns11" Broadcast Repeater utility, which will re-broadcast UDP requests on both sides of the link