Update the Configuration File for Microsoft SQL Server Datastores

You should only create or update a configuration file using the dbfhconfig command line utility.

  1. Open an command prompt.
  2. Set the MFDBFH_CONFIG environment variable to locate the configuration file to be created or updated:
    set MFDBFH_CONFIG=<location-and-name-of-file>

    If you do not set this variable, a file named MFDBFH.cfg is assumed to be located in the current directory.

    Note: The MFDBFH_SCRIPT_DIR environment variable is also required to point to the stored procedures used to interact with a datastore; however, this variable is implicitly set already when using an command prompt.
  3. Add a database server instance that you intend to connect to:
    dbfhconfig -add -server:<server-name> -provider:ss

    where <server-name> is the name of the database server instance. An entry of (local) or localhost is also valid, which defaults to your machine name.

    Next you need to specify the databases within the instance.

  4. Firstly, you need to create a reference to the master database - this is the primary configuration database supplied with MSSQL:
    Note: If the <server> element for your database server instance already exists, this reference should already exist.
    dbfhconfig -add -server:<server-name> -dsn:<name> -type:database -name:master [-connect:<connection-string>]

    where <name> is either the name you will give an ODBC data source for the master database (in which case, make a note of it for later), or a unique name within the server configuration in which to reference the database if you are using a connection string; and <connection-string> is the database connection string if you are establishing a database connection without the use of an ODBC data source - see Database Connection Strings for the database-specific syntax.

  5. Repeat the following step for each required datastore:
    dbfhconfig -add -server:<server-name> -dsn:<name> -type:datastore [-db:<existing-db>] [odbcdsn:<dsn-name>] -optio:<opts> -name:<dsname> [-connect:<connection-string>]

    where <name> is either the name you will give an ODBC data source for the datastore (in which case, make a note of it for later), or a unique name within the server configuration in which to reference the datastore if you are using a connection string; <existing-db> is the name of an existing database in which the datastore is stored - if this option is omitted, it is implied that the datastore is housed in its own database; <dsn-name> is the name of the data source used as a shared database connection (if you are using ODBC data sources and using a single physical database) - see Database Connections for more information; <opts> are the optimizations to be applied to I/O operations; and <dsname> is the actual name of the datastore (as configured in the data source properties).

    <opts> can be one of:
    option description
    all All optimizations applied, as if +<opt> had been specified for each available option. You can then selectively disable certain options using -<opt>.
    none No optimizations applied.
    {+|-}oiseq Enables (+) or disables (-) optimizations for line-sequential files opened for input.
    {+|-}ooseq Enables (+) or disables (-) optimizations for line-sequential files opened for output.
    {+|-}oi Enables (+) or disables (-) optimizations for ESDS, KSDS, and RRDS files opened for input.
    {+|-}oo Enables (+) or disables (-) optimizations for ESDS, KSDS, and RRDS files opened for output.

Example configuration file

The configuration file is written to after each command. The following is an example of a configuration file that contains two datastores, a region database and a cross-region database; each of these is stored in their own database within the instance (and named according to the dbname attribute). The MSSQL server instance is also configured for Windows authentication, hence the omission of the userid and password attributes.

<datastores usevault="false">
   <server name="(local)" type="sqlserver" access="odbc">
      <dsn name="SS.MYMASTER" type="database" dbname="master"/>
      <dsn name="SS.VSAM" type="datastore" dsname="VSAM" dbname="VSAM"/>
      <dsn name="SS.SEQ" type="datastore" dsname="SEQ" dbname="SEQ" optio="all -ooseq"/>
      <dsn name="SS.CAS.ESDEMO" type="region.cas" region="ESDEMO" dbname="ESDEMO" feature="all"/>
      <dsn name="SS.CROSSREGION" type="crossregion.cas" dbname="_$XREGN$"/>
   </server>
</datastores>

Next, if you have not used connection strings in your database configuration file, you must create the data sources for each of the databases you have configured. If you have used connection strings, you can skip the data source creation and use the dbfhdeploy command line utility to upload files to your datastores.