How to use Odbcping.exe to verify ODBC connectivity to SQL Server

This article describes how to verify ODBC connectivity to SQL Server.

More Information

Microsoft SQL Server versions 6.0 and later contain a 32-bit utility named Odbcping.exe that you can use to verify connectivity to SQL Server through ODBC SQL Server drivers. With the Odbcping.exe utility, you verify whether ODBC and the Microsoft SQL Server driver are properly installed by connecting to a server by using the ODBC SQL Server Driver.

Use the following command syntax to use the utility:The following parameters are in this command:

• LoginID is the SQL Server login ID.
• Password is the SQL Server password.
• Server is the network name of the server that is running SQL Server.
• DSN the name of an ODBC data source.

You must specify either /S or /D but not both. The version of Odbcping.exe that SQL Server 6.0 includes only accepts the /S, /U, and /P switches, it does not accept the /D switch. The switches are case sensitive. The 6.0 version of the utility is documented in the ODBC SQL Server Driver help file Drvssrvr.Hlp in the section "Connecting to a Data Source." SQL Server versions 6.0 and 6.5 include this help file. It is also in the SQL Server Books Online Administrator's Companion, Part 6, Chapter 15, "Troubleshooting and Recovery."

You can use the utility against SQL Server versions 4.21a or later, and you can use the Odbcping.exe utility from Microsoft Windows NT- or Microsoft Windows 95-based clients. If you use the /D switch, you can use the utility against any ODBC data source for the Win32 version (or versions) of the Microsoft SQL Server Driver (Sqlsrv32.dll). If you use /D for a data source while you are using a Win32 non-SQL Server driver, Odbcping.exe connects through the data source but it may experience difficulties when it tries to find the SQL Server version string. The utility does not work with Win16 ODBC drivers.

Note This utility has been deprecated in SQL Server 2005.

The following example demonstrates how to use this utility and how to verify the information that it provides.

If you run the following command (where abc is the server name) Odbcping.exe returns the following information on a successful connection (SQL Server and driver version): The purpose of the Odbcping.exe utility is to test SQL Server driver data sources. If you use the /D switch to connect to a non-SQL Server driver ODBC data source, Odbcping.exe prints the ODBC driver version, but it does not print correct server information. If errors occur during the connect attempt, Odbcping.exe correctly reports the errors.

For example, if you run the following command on a client that has the ODBC SDK sample applications installed: and the connection is successful, the utility generates the following information: If you use the /S switch, Odbcping.exe, uses the default network library that you specified in the SQL Client Configuration Utility. If you use the /D switch, Odbcping.exe uses the network library that you defined in the data source. To quickly test the basic setup of multiple network libraries, use the SQL Client Configuration Utility to set different network libraries as the default protocol, and then use Odbcping.exe with the /S switch to test them. For more information about ODBC SQL Server connection parameters, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: You can use the utility the same way that you use the ODBC Test utility in the ODBC SDK package: to help load different network libraries and to test the connectivity through ODBC. You can also use it to verify that the ODBC modules are installed and configured correctly. However, you cannot run the utility in a Win16 client environment (for example: Microsoft Windows 3.1, or Microsoft Windows for Workgroups).

NOTE: If you use the 6.0 version of the Odbcping.exe utility to interpret connectivity errors, but you try to connect to a server that does not exist in the network, you do not receive the "pfNative" error so you cannot interpret the actual source of the problem. For more information about how to interpret pfNative code reported by connectivity errors, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Example:

If you use the 6.0 version of the Odbcping.exe utility on an unsuccessful connection with named pipes, you receive the following error message: However, you receive the following error message if you use the 6.5 version of the Odbcping.exe utility: