Linux - PHP 7.0 and MSSQL (Microsoft SQL)

Question

Yes, I know that PHP 7.0 removed the extensions needed to connect to MSSQL. FreeTDS was my option prior to PHP 7.0 but now there really is no obvious upgrade path for those

Answer 1

Microsoft has PHP Linux Drivers for SQL Server for PHP 7 and above on PECL. These are production ready. To download them, follow these steps:

Ubuntu 16.04:

sudo su 
curl https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | apt-key add -
curl https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/16.04/prod.list > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mssql-release.list
exit
sudo apt-get update
sudo ACCEPT_EULA=Y apt-get install -y msodbcsql mssql-tools unixodbc-dev
sudo pecl install sqlsrv
sudo pecl install pdo_sqlsrv
echo "extension=sqlsrv" >> `php --ini | grep "Loaded Configuration" | sed -e "s|.*:\s*||"`
echo "extension=pdo_sqlsrv" >> `php --ini | grep "Loaded Configuration" | sed -e "s|.*:\s*||"`

CentOS 7:

sudo su
curl https://packages.microsoft.com/config/rhel/7/prod.repo > /etc/yum.repos.d/mssql-release.repo
exit
sudo yum update
sudo ACCEPT_EULA=Y yum install -y msodbcsql mssql-tools unixODBC-devel 
sudo yum groupinstall "Development Tools"
sudo pecl install sqlsrv
sudo pecl install pdo_sqlsrv
echo "extension=sqlsrv" >> `php --ini | grep "Loaded Configuration" | sed -e "s|.*:\s*||"`
echo "extension=pdo_sqlsrv" >> `php --ini | grep "Loaded Configuration" | sed -e "s|.*:\s*||"`

This will install the PHP SQL Server Drivers and register them in the php.ini folder.

Verify that it works by using the following sample

<?php
$serverName = "localhost";
$connectionOptions = array(
    "Database" => "SampleDB",
    "Uid" => "sa",
    "PWD" => "your_password"
);
//Establishes the connection
$conn = sqlsrv_connect($serverName, $connectionOptions);
if($conn)
    echo "Connected!"
?>

Links for reference:

• https://pecl.php.net/package/sqlsrv

• https://pecl.php.net/package/pdo_sqlsrv

• https://github.com/Microsoft/msphpsql

Answer 2

A short dump for the Debian people:

# Install MSSQL Client for PHP7 on Debian 9
apt update && apt install curl apt-transport-https
curl https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | apt-key add -
curl https://packages.microsoft.com/config/debian/9/prod.list > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mssql-release.list
apt update
ACCEPT_EULA=Y apt install msodbcsql17 mssql-tools unixodbc-dev php-pear php7.0-dev
pecl install sqlsrv
pecl install pdo_sqlsrv
# if previous pecl cmds fails to download files at it's own - try the following ones:
#wget http://pecl.php.net/get/sqlsrv-5.2.0.tgz
#wget http://pecl.php.net/get/pdo_sqlsrv-5.2.0.tgz
#pecl install sqlsrv-5.2.0.tgz
#pecl install pdo_sqlsrv-5.2.0.tgz

cat <<EOF > /etc/php/7.0/cli/conf.d/99-sqlsrv.ini  
extension=sqlsrv.so
extension=pdo_sqlsrv.so
EOF
cat <<EOF > /etc/php/7.0/apache2/conf.d/99-sqlsrv.ini  
extension=sqlsrv.so
extension=pdo_sqlsrv.so
EOF

service apache2 restart

Answer 3

tldr; sqlsrv and pdo_sqlsrv php extentions were very slow with large queries with lots of parameters, but installing and using pdo-dblib resolved the issue for me.

Running on php framework laravel 5.1 and 5.6 (on php 7.1 and 7.2) on Ubunutu 16.04. I found that the packages sqlsrv and pdo_sqlsrv did not work well for large queries. I had a large query with 30 bound variables. Sql Server 2008 converted all of the bound variables to nvarchar(4000) causing the db to do loads of casting taking forever.

I then disable the sqlsrv.so and pdo_sqlsrv.so extentions and installed pdo-dblib extension with:

sudo apt-get install php7.2-pdo-dblib

Then the query processed much quicker.

For more information:

Under the hood laravel uses a PDOStatement like this:

$conn = new PDO( "dblib:host=$host:1433;dbname=$db;", $uid, $pwd);
$stmt = $conn->prepare( $query );
$stmt->execute($param);

where a direct query like

$conn = new PDO( "dblib:host=$host:1433;dbname=$db;", $uid, $pwd);
$results = $conn->query( $query_with_parameter_already_bound );

would work fine.