How To Install and Configure the Lite Edition ODBC Drivers for PostgreSQL (macOS)

Pre-Installation Guide

  1. You need to know a variety of information pertaining to your PostgreSQL Server:
    • PostgreSQL TCP port: Specify the TCP port number used for communication with the PostgreSQL database.
    • Hostname or IP address of the PostgreSQL database server: Provide the hostname or IP address of the server where your PostgreSQL database is located.

Installation Guide

  1. Download and open the Lite Edition (Single-Tier) ODBC Driver for PostgreSQL Data Sources. It is distributed in a single disk image (.dmg) file, which contains a Macintosh Installer package (.mpkg).
    • Double-click the .mpkg to start the installation process.
    • After the driver has been installed, you will be prompted to locate a license file.
      NOTE: If a correctly named file already exists in $OPL_LICENSE_DIR, /Library/Application Support/OpenLink/Licenses/, you will not see this dialog. If the existing file is not valid (evaluation has expired, it's for a different OS, it permits insufficient processor cores, etc.), you will need to manually apply a valid license file after installation is completed.
      NOTE: In some environments, this dialog may be hidden by the Installer.app or other windows on your Mac. Please minimize, hide, and/or move windows until you can see and act on this dialog. If you do not answer this dialog, the installation will not complete properly, and the driver will not function as desired.
    • If a license file already exists on the machine, select the 'use existing' option. (Previously generated license files may be re-downloaded from your ODS-Briefcase data space.)
    • If you need to obtain a new trial or permanent license file, select the 'try or buy' option, which will load a relevant web page from which you can obtain a license file.

Configuration Guide

  1. To configure an ODBC DSN, run the OpenLink iODBC Administrator located in the /Applications/iODBC folder:
  2. Click the System DSN tab.
  3. Click the Add button.
  4. Then, select the OpenLink PostgreSQL Lite Driver from the list of available drivers.
  5. Select the Unicode version of the driver if and only if you are working with multi-byte character sets, as unnecessary translations can significantly affect ODBC performance.
  6. Click Finish.
  7. The Data Source tab prompts for information that identifies the PostgreSQL database server and listen port. It also requests a name for your Data Source. You may also supply an optional description for your Data Source Name.
    • DSN: A brief and meaningful title for your Data Source Name
    • Description: An optional description for your Data Source Name
    • Hostname: The hostname or IP of the server on which PostgreSQL runs
    • Port number: The TCP port on which PostgreSQL listens
  8. Press Continue once your data source details have been added.
  9. The Connection Tab takes a combination of required and optional parameters to make a connection to the target database:
    • Username: A PostgreSQL username
    • Row Buffer Size: This attribute specifies the number of records to be transported over the network in a single network hop. Values can range from 1 to 99.
    • Hide Login Dialog: Suppresses the ODBC "Username" and "Password" login dialog boxes when interacting with your ODBC DSN from within an ODBC compliant application.
    • Read Only connection: Specifies whether the connection is "Read-only." Make sure the checkbox is unchecked to request a "Read/Write" connection.
    • Database: A valid PostgreSQL database
    • SQL_DBMS Name: Manually overrides the SQLGetInfo(SQL_DBMS_NAME) response returned by the driver. This is required for products like Microsoft InfoPath for which the return value should be "SQL Server".
  10. Click Continue once your connection parameters have been set.
  11. Click Continue to view additional preferences that can be set for the connection.
    • Initialization SQL: Lets you specify a file containing SQL statements that will be run automatically against the database upon connection.
    • Cursor Sensitivity: Enables or disables the row version cache used with dynamic cursors.
    • Max Rows Override: Allows you to define a limit on the maximum number of rows to be returned from a query. The default value of 0 means no limit.
    • Show remarks: Affects output from the SQLColumns() ODBC API call.
    • Disable autocommit: Changes the default commit behavior of the OpenLink driver. The default mode is AutoCommit (box unchecked).
    • Disable rowset size limit: Removes OpenLink's default 100 rowset restriction.
    • Defer fetching of long data: Defers fetching of LONG (BINARY, BLOB, etc.) data unless explicitly requested in a query. This provides significant performance increases when fields in the query do not include LONG data fields.
    • Always include VIEWS in table list:
    • Always include all types in table list:
    • Custom Catalogue Views: Dictates whether custom OpenLink views are used to return metadata for certain ODBC catalog functions: SQLForeignKeys(), SQLPrimaryKeys(), SQLProcedureColumns(), SQLProcedures(), and SQLSpecialColumns(). These custom views provide more metadata than is normally provided by the standard Oracle data dictionary views.
    • User's own tables first in SQLTables: This option is specific to OpenLink's Oracle drivers. It prompts the SQLTables() ODBC API call to display the connected user's tables first in table lists. The default ordering is alphabetical.
    • Count stored procedure parameters in SQL Procedures: This parameter is specific to the Oracle data source. It affects the output from SQLProcedures() when "Custom Catalog Views" is enabled.
  12. Click the Finish button to save your new Data Source Name.