Posted by Rick Emery on 10/07/05 04:29

Knowing that I'm not the only one to want to connect to Microsoft SQL
Server on Windows from PHP and Apache on Linux, I'm seeking advice.

I set up a proof-of-concept application, using Gentoo Linux (with which
I'm most familiar) as my base. Being a compile-from-source distribution
with a lot of packages available, I simply had to set the "mssql" USE
flag and emerge freetds and php. Voila; connectivity.

Not surprisingly, now that my organization has decided to go with PHP
on Linux, management wants to use a commercially supported distribution
(Red Hat or Novell/SUSE). I was surprised to discover that I couldn't
find RPMs for freetds, nor could I find php-mssql RPMs, and the php
RPMs available in the yum repositories weren't compiled with
--with-mssql.

Is my only recourse to build freetds and php from source? I'm certainly
capable of doing it, but I won't be the server administrator and I
think it defeats what management wants to accomplish with a
commercially supported distro (package management with easy updates).

Is anybody in a similar environment that has an easy solution, or can
anybody offer advice?

Thanks in advance,
Rick
--
Rick Emery

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth
with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there
you will always long to return"
-- Leonardo Da Vinci

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