Installing MSSQL for PHP

Introduction

This short manual is suitable if you are trying to run Moodle 1.7 (and upwards) using the SQL*Server (MSSQL) RDBMS. Steps detailed below must be performed before installing Moodle itself.

First of all, minimum required version of MSSQL has been stabilised to MSSQL 2005 (v.9), although it might work with MSSQL 2000 (v.8) or newer. All the development process has been performed using MSSQL 2005 and there could be some unknown problems with previous releases.

While PHP comes with one, more or less, standard extension (mssql) that provides access to MSSQL databases, early we found some hard limits on it. Basically such default extension has some limits that prevent us to use it at all (you can find more info about these problems here).

So, in order to allow PHP (i.e. Moodle) to access to MSSQL DBs properly we have to install a mssql extension alternative to save us from the problems related above. See the sections below for details about the various options.

Installation overview

1. Get MSSQL Server installed and running. (A free limited version, SQL Server Express Edition is available for testing.)

Make sure that you choose mixed authentication (Windows and local accounts) to keep things simpler later. You'll be asked to define the "sa" account password (it's the default System Administrator account which has full access to all databases by default).

2. Make sure MS SQL Server can accept incoming TCP/IP connections on port 1433 (the standard one).

You might need to explicitly allow this in your Windows firewall (see the Control Panel). You may also need to edit options in the :SQL Server Configuration Manager -> Network Configuration -> Protocols -> TCP/IP enabled

3. Open the "SQL Server Management Studio" and create a new empty database. If you are using the "sa" account then you don't need to do anything else here.

4. Configure these settings in your created (and still empty) database:

ANSI NULLS Enabled = true (ALTER DATABASE xxxx SET ANSI_NULLS ON)
Quoted Identifiers Enabled = true (ALTER DATABASE xxxx SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON)
Moodle 2.0 only: Row Versioning Enabled (ALTER DATABASE xxxx SET READ_COMMITTED_SNAPSHOT ON)

5. Get PHP installed with a web server. Unless you want to do it under IIS or some other way, the packages on the Moodle download page are a good solution.

6. Choose one of the following specific sections for your server to install the mssql extension alternative installed and running properly on your PHP box.

7. Set the following settings in your php.ini file

mssql.textlimit = 20971520
mssql.textsize = 20971520

Also, don't forget to set one of the following alternatives, in order to get all the data properly "slashed":

magic_quotes_gpc = Off or
magic_quotes_gpc = On and magic_quotes_sybase = On

8. With all this properly configured, you can continue with a standard Moodle installation.

Using FreeTDS on Windows

Important Note 1: Due to some previous bugs it's highly recommendable to use PHP >= 5.2.6 and FreeTDS 0.82 + post-release patches (more info).

If your web server is on Windows, use php_dblib.dll. Despite the name, it's FreeTDS compiled for Windows. (Go to this page for information on Using FreeTDS for Unix.)

Originally we were using the DLLs available at Frank Kromann's site, but they are outdated (using old versions of FreeTDS) and that has caused some problems in the past.

So, right now, the recommended way to use FreeTDS under Windows is to use PHP 5.2.x following the following instructions:

1. Download the appropriate copy of php_dblib.dll from the list below, and save it into your /PHP/ext directory.

PHP version	Thread Safe	FreeTDS version	Download URL
PHP 5.2.x (vc6)	Yes	0.82 + 20090302 patches	Download!
PHP 5.2.x (vc6)	No	0.82 + 20090302 patches	Download!
PHP 5.3.x (vc9)	Yes	0.82 + 20090904 patches	Download!
PHP 5.3.x (vc9)	No	0.82 + 20090904 patches	Download!
Thanks to Remote-Learner] (Moodle Partner) and specially to Bryan Williams, donating one Visual C++ 6.0 Pro license to Moodle. Thanks to Trevor Johnson and his builds of the dblib extensions. Thanks to Daniele, Doug, Luis, Sean and many others by their collaboration in MDL-14725. Thanks to Frediano Ziglio and James K. Lowden from freetds.org by their support. Thanks to Alastair Hole by providing the PHP 5.3 builds of the libraries. Thanks!

(alternatively here you can find some instructions to build those freetds extensions under win32 yourself)

2. FreeTDS requires the .NET Framework v1.1 to be installed. You can download it from the Microsoft website along with its service pack. Alternatively, if you do not wish to install this framework, you can download the required DLL from Frank's site, and save it into your /PHP root directory.

3. Edit your /PHP/php.ini file and add this line:

 extension=php_dblib.dll

Make sure that any lines referring to the php_mssql.dll extension are DISABLED (commented out).

4. When the PHP engine loads the FreeTDS extension it needs to be passed certain infiormation in order to be able to connect to your Moodle database. To retrieve this information FreeTDS looks for a file called freetds.conf in the C:\ folder on your server.

freetds.conf should have the following structure:

 [global]
     host = xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (host name or ip of the MSSQL server)
     port = 1433
     client charset = UTF-8
     tds version = 8.0
     text size = 20971520

If you want to connect to a particular instance of MSSQL you should specify the instance name:

 [global]
     host = xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (host name or ip, e.g. mymoodleserver.com or 163.123.456.78)
     instance = xxx (instance name, e.g. I2)
     port = 1433
     client charset = UTF-8
     tds version = 8.0
     text size = 20971520

Notes:

You can put the freetds.conf in any other directory on your server - you don't have to use C:\. To do this create an environment variable called FREETDS and point it to the directory where you have the freetds.conf file. If you do not set this environment variable then FreeTDS will look for the freetds.conf file in the C:\ folder. See the FreeTDS Setting the environment variables documentation for more information.

Alternatively, you can recompile FreeTDS and change the default location at compile time.

MSSQL is usually installed with port 1433 as the default. However, if it was changed on your server when you installed MSSQL then you need to specify the correct port number.

5. Your Moodle config.php should include lines like these:

$CFG->dbtype = 'mssql_n'; // Required $CFG->dbhost = 'localhost'; // assuming MS SQL is on the same server, otherwise use an IP $CFG->dbname = 'moodle'; // or whatever you called the database you created $CFG->dbuser = 'yourusername'; // I usually use the 'sa' account (dbowner perms are enough) $CFG->dbpass = 'yourpassword'; $CFG->dbpersist = false; $CFG->prefix = 'mdl_'; //Prefix, you can change it, but NEVER leave it blank.

If you don't have a config.php file yet, it can be generated as normal from the Moodle installer. Alternatively you can use config-dist.php to create your own config.php file.

6. Restart or start your web server. If Moodle still cannot communicate with the database server, please turn display_startup_errors to "On" in your /PHP/php.ini file, then restart the web server and check for any errors that may indicate incorrect DLL versions or missing dependencies. These error reports, turned off by default in PHP, can be vital in locating a problem with new extension installations.

7. Database conection test, try this PHP script, just put in a text file called test.php change ('localhost', 'db_user', 'db_password') to suite your setup, and load from local host (http://localhost/test.php)...

<?php $link = mssql_connect('localhost', 'db_user', 'db_password'); if(!$link) { echo'Could not connect'; die('Could not connect: ' . mssql_error()); } echo'Successful connection'; mssql_close($link); ?>

8. Install Moodle as usual. Good luck!

Troubleshooting

If you encounter some problems you can try:

check that you have DotNet framework 1.1 installed (later version are installed on Vista, but you could need this specific one)
enable TCP/IP for MSSQL: SQL Server 2005 Network Configuration -> Protocols for MSSQLSERVER -> TCP/IP (Enable) -> Properties -> Ip Addresses -> 127.0.0.1 (Active+Enable)
if you are using SQL Server 2005 and you have the error 4004: Unicode data in a Unicode-only collation or ntext data cannot be sent to clients using DB-Library (such as ISQL) or ODBC version 3.7 or earlier, try the ODBTP method (next chapter). The SQL Server complaining that it doesn't support pure Unicode via TDS or older versions of ODBC. Microsoft has deprecated DB-Library a long ago, in favor of ODBC, OLE DB, or SQL Native Client. Many new features of SQL 2005 aren't accessible via DB-Library so if you need them, you could have to switch away from tools based on TDS and DB-Library :(

Using ODBTP on Unix or Windows

You can download ODBTP from http://odbtp.sourceforge.net/. Also you will access to the documentation from the same page.

The downloaded package includes both the source code and some binaries to be installed in the server and some ready-to-use mssql extension alternatives for some platforms/PHP versions (so you won't need to compile it if your PHP server/version binary package is present).

First of all, we have to install the Win32 service that comes with the package. Let's assume that it's going to run in the same Win32 machine where your MSSQL server is running (although it can run in any other Win32 server in your network).

To do do, following the instructions present in http://odbtp.sourceforge.net/install.html, you must:

Do the following on the MSSQL server:

Create a directory on the Windows host where the service program files will reside, i.e., md odbtp.
Copy the files odbtpctl.exe, odbtpsrv.exe and odbtpsrv.ini files from the winservice directory into the directory created in step 1.
Edit the file odbtpsrv.ini of the previous step and this line:
```
MaxRequestSize=20971520
```
Open a command prompt (cmd) window on the Windows host.
Change to the directory to which the service program files were copied, i.e., cd odbtp.
Run the following commands to install and start the service:
- odbtpctl install
- odbtpctl start
With these steps you should have one new service running in your host called "odbtp". Verify it's present and running in the "Services" control panel.
Don't forget to enable TCP/IP incoming connections to port 2799 in the host you have installed the service!

Now it's time to build the mssql extension alternative. First of all, verify if, in the downloaded package, under the "php" dir, there is one extension suitable for your PHP server/version. If it's present, you can simply copy it to the php/extensions dir in your PHP server and skip next points about compiling it from source. It's important to point that, inside each directory, you'll find two different libraries/dll files. The one that must be copied to the extensions dir is the one called "php_odbtp_mssql.xxx"!

If in the downloaded package isn't present the extension matching your PHP platform/version, you should build if from source files. To do that, just "configure, make, make install". That will create some stuff under "/usr/local".

Now that you've successfully built ODBTP is time to create the mssql extension alternative that will provide us with the capacity of handling MSSQL DBs from within Moodle. To do so, just configure your PHP server adding this new option to the usual ones:

 --with-odbtp-mssql

then, after the standard "make and make install" steps, your PHP server will be built with MSSQL support provided by ODBTP.

Do the following on the moodle webserver: Finally, independently if we are using the binary extension provided in the download or if you have built it from source files, it's time to configure the extension. 1. To do so, add this lines, if no present, to your php.ini file:

 extension=php_odbtp_mssql.dll

(only for Win32 PHP servers!)

2. And, for all the server platforms:

 [odbtp]
 odbtp.interface_file = "/path/to/your/odbtp.conf"
 odbtp.datetime_format = mdyhmsf
 odbtp.detach_default_queries = yes

(where "/path/to/your/odbtp.conf" is usually "/usr/local/etc/odbtp.conf" for Unix systems and "C:\odbtp\odbtp.conf" for Windows systems)

Then, edit such "odbtp.conf" file and put there these contents:

 [global]
 odbtp host = xxx.xxx.xxx (ip or hostname of the Win32 box running the ODBTP service i.e MSSQL server)
 type = mssql
 unicode sql = yes
 use row cache = yes
 right trim text = yes
 var data size = 20971520

With this, your PHP server will be able to connect with the MSSQL DB server using ODBTP. From here, just continue with the installation.

Finally, if you find the ODBTP executables and mssql extension alternative in binary formats, it only will be necessary to install them in your server (binary packages...) without the need to recompile anything (just the php.ini and odbtp.conf edition steps above will be necessary). Of course, it will be really welcome to have all those binary alternatives documented here.

Once ODBTP is working, Moodle config.php should include lines like these:

$CFG->dbtype = 'mssql_n'; // Required $CFG->dbhost = 'localhost'; // assuming MS SQL is on the same server, otherwise use an IP $CFG->dbname = 'moodle'; // or whatever you called the database you created $CFG->dbuser = 'yourusername'; // I usually use the 'sa' account (dbowner perms are enough) $CFG->dbpass = 'yourpassword'; $CFG->dbpersist = false; $CFG->prefix = 'mdl_'; //Prefix, you can change it, but NEVER leave it blank.

If you don't have a config.php file yet, it can be generated as normal from the Moodle installer.

Using ODBC on Windows

ODBC allows communication with an SQL database. Template:Not for production sites

1. Go to the Administrative Tools control panel, then the Data Sources (ODBC) panel.

2. Configure one new System/User DSN (call it, for example "moodle"). Dont forget to enable these options if the driver asks for them:

ANSI NULLS Enabled = true
Quoted Identifiers Enabled = true

3. Your Moodle config.php should include lines like these:

$CFG->dbtype = 'odbc_mssql'; // Note this is different to all the other configs on this page! $CFG->dbhost = 'moodle'; // Where this matches the Data source name you chose above $CFG->dbname = ; // Keep it blank!! $CFG->dbuser = 'yourusername'; // I usually use the 'sa' account (dbowner perms are enough) $CFG->dbpass = 'yourpassword'; $CFG->dbpersist = false; $CFG->prefix = 'mdl_'; //Prefix, you can change it, but NEVER leave it blank.

4. Install Moodle as usual. Good luck!

Using the SQL Server 2005 Driver for PHP from Microsoft

In July 2008 Microsoft released their new SQL Server 2005 Driver for PHP. It is a PHP extension that allows for the reading and writing of SQL Server data from within PHP scripts. However there are some limitations with this driver that make it incompatible with Moodle, e.g.:

limitations with how it handles UTF-8 strings and
it does not support the legacy mssql php driver function names

For more info see MDL-16497 and MDL-15093.

So, for now, you should not use this driver with Moodle 1.9.

Documentation