使用 Pyodbc 从 WSL2 连接到 Windows 上的数据库的 DSN 连接

Question

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I am looking to use a DSN connection that has been set up on my Windows 10 machine to pull data from our Sage100 Financial database. I know the DSN connection is set up correctly as I'm able to connect to the database & refresh data in Microsoft Excel using the "Get Data" query option. I currently open Excel, refresh the tables, & then use Python in WSL2 to automate reports.

I would like to remove the Excel / refresh table portion of the workflow & connect to the database in VS Code in WSL2.

In the past, I have utilized Python / pyodbc to query the database with success using Python on the windows side of my machine using the below. This reinforces the DSN connection works on the Windows side.

import pyodbc
import pandas as pandas

cnxn = pyodbc.connect("DSN=KGConnection", autocommit=True)
sql = """ SELECT * FROM IM_ItemWarehouse """

x = pd.read_sql(sql,cnxn)

My goal however is to use WSL2 for all queries & further analysis. I found this StackOverflow link that gets close to the correct answer, but I am hoping to find something that allows me to utilize the simple DSN that I know works.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

TL;DR - pyodbc on WSL2 cannot use ODBC DSNs defined on the Windows side.

That is because

1. the ODBC Driver Manager on WSL2 (unixODBC) cannot "see" the Windows DSNs, and

2. even if they were visible, the Windows ODBC DSNs would use the Windows version of the ODBC driver (eg, "msodbcsql17.dll" for MS SQL Server) and not the Linux version of the driver (eg, "libmsodbcsql-17.10.so.2.1"), and Linux cannot natively run Windows DLLs.

If you want to establish a direct ODBC connection to a database (ie, any database, regardless of the platform on which it is hosted) from WSL2 you will need to install a Linux version of the ODBC driver for that database.

If the database in question does not have a Linux ODBC driver but does have a Windows ODBC driver then it might be possible to create an indirect connection by

• installing MS SQL Server Express Edition on Windows,
• creating a SQL Server "linked server" to the other database via the Windows ODBC driver for that database, and then
• accessing the linked server via the Linux version of the MS SQL Server ODBC driver on WSL2

but that might easily prove to be more trouble than it's worth.