Re: Why is ODBC so difficult?

Josh Hillman ( (no email) )
Wed, 25 Feb 1998 14:50:28 -0500

> From: Beverly Wise <bev@hyper-drive.com>
>
> To all the members... I have been trying to use ODBC mode with Radius NT
for
> a week now. I can get it to work as long as I don't use my regular
radius
> users file in the directories tab, as long as I do have an expire field
> value ( which the instructions say that this field can be NULL and it
won't
> expire) MaExpire that is. I can't make the maExpire field past 12/31/99
or
> it says 00 if I try 2000. Now, I have asked for help, and I have gotten
> some. We run great in Text mode, but in ODBC, nothing but problems, and
if
> I do get it to run, when I come in the next day, it has performed an
error
> and shut down. I want some peoples opinion on if using ODBC is really
worth
> the trouble?

We've been using ODBC for over a year and a half using RadiusNT and SQL 6.5
and it has been great! There are a couple quirks with RadiusNT
(periodically crashing, causing the arch enemy, Dr. Watson, to appear), but
aside from that there are so many benefits that I'd never want to go back
to a users file (except for periodic backup purposes).

As for the expiration, I just put in an expiration for my own account of
"1/1/00" then checked the Emerald db (SQL) and MasterAccount.MaExpireDate
displays "Jan 1 2000 12:00 AM" so there are no problems there. I have no
idea if NULL expiration dates work or not--never bothered with them.

Aside from the expiration problem, what other problems are you running
into?

NT 4.0 SP3, SQL Server 6.5 SP3, RadiusNT 2.2.41, Emerald 2.1.11,
Ascend Max 4004, 4048, 4002, Livingston PortMaster 2e

Josh Hillman
hillman@talstar.com