Creating an ODBC Connection with ColdFusion Administrator.

This tutorial will guide you step by step on how to make an ODBC connection with your ColdFusion server administration area. Let's begin:

The first thing you need to do is to open the ColdFusion Administrator:

http://127.0.0.1/cfide/administrator/

That by default is the path, if you are running ColdFusion MX as stand alone, then in most cases by default it is:

http://127.0.0.1:8500/cfide/administrator/

OK, this will load the image you see below:

Once you have successfully logged in, you will need to go into the Data Sources area of the administrator:

OK, to proceed you will have to know what type of database you will be using, in this example I will connect to an Access and to a SQL database, there are other types, for more information about those connection types, please refer to the documentation that came with the database you want to use. :)

The Access Way [If at all possible, use SQL.. access is not a very good database to use on the web, but if you cannot use SQL, then use Access :)].

Then click on the "Add" Button. This will bring you to the next screen:

Now notice that you can also define other settings, I've only showed you the bare minimum for you to successfully setup an ODBC connection, for more information on the other settings, please ready he help section of the ColdFusion Administrator Documentation.

Now let's see what you need to do to get a SQL ODBC Connection going. You will need to know three things before proceeding:
1 - The IP/address to the SQL server.
2 - The database name in the SQL server you will be using.
3 - Your SQL username/password.

The SQL way. Let's begin:

Same as above, enter a desired datasource name and select Microsoft SQL server from the drop down box. Then click on the "Add" button.

Then it will load this screen, click on the "Show Advanced Settings" button first.

That will show the following screen:

Once again, notice that there are a lot of settings you can specify and I am just showing you the basics!

That's it, you now know how to create an ODBC Connection!

Questions? Comments? Email me.....