ODBC Access to MS Access Databases from Unix and Linux
Easysoft provide ODBC access to Microsoft Access databases (MDB or ACCDB) from non-Windows platforms with:
- The Access ODBC driver, a file-based ODBC driver that communicates directly with the Access database file. The database file must be visible through the local file system on the machine where you install the driver.
- The ODBC-ODBC Bridge, a client/server product that uses the Microsoft Access ODBC driver to communicate with the Access database file.
| Advantages of using the Access ODBC Driver |
Advantages of using the ODBC-ODBC Bridge |
- The Access ODBC driver costs less than the ODBC-ODBC Bridge.
- You do not need to install a service on the Windows machine where your MS Access database file is located.
- If the MS Access database file is located on the Access ODBC driver machine, performance will be superior to the ODBC-ODBC Bridge. Accessing a database file locally is faster than accessing a database file over the network.
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- You are using the Microsoft Access ODBC driver to access the database file. Using the database vendor’s driver to communicate with the database file may be required to comply with IT company policy at your site.
- You do not need to move the MS Access database file or share the folder it resides in.
- You do not need to install any other software (e.g., a Samba server or client) on your Unix/Linux machine to facilitate shared access to the database file.
- You can access an MS Access database file through a firewall without opening the SMB protocol up in the firewall. With the ODBC-ODBC Bridge, you only need to open up one port (8888, by default, although this can be changed) to one machine.
- The ODBC-ODBC Bridge can bind Unicode data in SQL parameters and retrieve Unicode data.
- The ODBC-ODBC Bridge is available on more platforms than our Access ODBC driver.
- The ODBC-ODBC Bridge can connect to any database for which an ODBC driver is available, you are not restricted to MS Access.
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If I choose your Access ODBC driver, how can my Windows and non-Windows users connect to the same database file?
You can use a Samba server to expose an MS Access database file on the Access ODBC driver machine to Windows users. On Linux, you can also mount a Windows share in which an MS Access database file is located by using the Samba client tool smbmount. For read-write access to the database file, the version of smbmount on your Linux machine needs to support directio configuration option, which disables local file caching.
