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ODBC Driver for ClickHouse

Build and Test - Linux Build and Test - macOS Build and Test - Windows

Introduction

This is the official ODBC driver implementation for accessing ClickHouse as a data source.

For more information on ClickHouse go to ClickHouse home page.

For more information on what ODBC is go to ODBC Overview.

The canonical repo for this driver is located at https://github.com/ClickHouse/clickhouse-odbc.

See LICENSE file for licensing information.

Table of contents

Installation

Pre-built binary packages of the release versions of the driver available for the most common platforms at:

The ODBC driver is mainly tested against ClickHouse server version 21.3. Older versions of ClickHouse server as well as newer ones (with greater success) should work too. Possible complications with older version may include handling Null values and Nullable types, alternative wire protocol support, timezone handling during date/time conversions, etc.

Note, that since ODBC drivers are not used directly by a user, but rather accessed through applications, which in their turn access the driver through ODBC driver manager, user have to install the driver for the same architecture (32- or 64-bit) as the application that is going to access the driver. Moreover, both the driver and the application must be compiled for (and actually use during run-time) the same ODBC driver manager implementation (we call them "ODBC providers" here). There are three supported ODBC providers:

  • ODBC driver manager associated with MDAC (Microsoft Data Access Components, sometimes referenced as WDAC, Windows Data Access Components) - the standard ODBC provider of Windows
  • UnixODBC - the most common ODBC provider in Unix-like systems. Theoretically, could be used in Cygwin or MSYS/MinGW environments in Windows too.
  • iODBC - less common ODBC provider, mainly used in Unix-like systems, however, it is the standard ODBC provider in macOS. Theoretically, could be used in Cygwin or MSYS/MinGW environments in Windows too.

If you have Homebrew installed (usually applicable to macOS only, but can also be available in Linux), just execute:

brew install clickhouse-odbc

If you don't see a package that matches your platforms under Releases, or the version of your system is significantly different than those of the available packages, or maybe you want to try a bleeding edge version of the code that hasn't been released yet, you can always build the driver manually from sources:

Note, that it is always a good idea to install the driver from the corresponding native package (if one is supported for your platform, like .msi, etc., which you can also easily create if you are building from sources), than use the binaries that were manually copied to a destination folder.

Native packages will have all the dependency information so when you install the driver using a native package, all required run-time packages will be installed automatically. If you use manual packaging, i.e., just extract driver binaries to some folder, you also have to make sure that all the run-time dependencies are satisfied in your system manually:

Configuration

The first step usually consists of registering the driver so that the corresponding ODBC provider is able to locate it.

The next step is defining one or more DSNs, associated with the newly registered driver, and setting driver-specific parameters in the body of those DSN definitions.

All this involves modifying a dedicated registry keys in case of MDAC, or editing odbcinst.ini (for driver registration) and odbc.ini (for DSN definition) files for UnixODBC or iODBC, directly or indirectly.

This will be performed automatically using some default values if you are installing the driver using native installers.

Otherwise, if you are configuring manually, or need to modify the default configuration created by the installer, please see the exact locations of files (or registry keys) that need to be modified in the corresponding section below:

The list of DSN parameters recognized by the driver is as follows:

Parameter Default value Description
Url empty URL that points to a running ClickHouse instance, may include username, password, port, database, etc. Also, see URL query string
Proto deduced from Url, or from Port and SSLMode: https if 443 or 8443 or SSLMode is not empty, http otherwise Protocol, one of: http, https
Server or Host deduced from Url IP or hostname of a server with a running ClickHouse instance on it
Port deduced from Url, or from Proto: 8443 if https, 8123 otherwise Port on which the ClickHouse instance is listening
Path /query Path portion of the URL
UID or Username default User name
PWD or Password empty Password
Database default Database name to connect to
Timeout 30 Connection timeout
VerifyConnectionEarly off Verify the connection and credentials during SQLConnect and similar calls (adds a typical overhead of one trivial remote query execution), otherwise, possible connection-related failures will be detected later, during SQLExecute and similar calls
SSLMode empty Certificate verification method (used by TLS/SSL connections, ignored in Windows), one of: allow, prefer, require, use allow to enable SSL_VERIFY_PEER TLS/SSL certificate verification mode, SSL_VERIFY_PEER | SSL_VERIFY_FAIL_IF_NO_PEER_CERT is used otherwise
PrivateKeyFile empty Path to private key file (used by TLS/SSL connections), can be empty if no private key file is used
CertificateFile empty Path to certificate file (used by TLS/SSL connections, ignored in Windows), if the private key and the certificate are stored in the same file, this can be empty if PrivateKeyFile is specified
CALocation empty Path to the file or directory containing the CA/root certificates (used by TLS/SSL connections, ignored in Windows)
HugeIntAsString off Report integer column types that may underflow or overflow 64-bit signed integer (SQL_BIGINT) as a String/SQL_VARCHAR
DriverLog on if CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE is Debug, off otherwise Enable or disable the extended driver logging
DriverLogFile \temp\clickhouse-odbc-driver.log on Windows, /tmp/clickhouse-odbc-driver.log otherwise Path to the extended driver log file (used when DriverLog is on)

URL query string

Some of configuration parameters can be passed to the server as a part of the query string of the URL.

The list of parameters in the query string of the URL that are also recognized by the driver is as follows:

Parameter Default value Description
database default Database name to connect to
default_format ODBCDriver2 Default wire format of the resulting data that the server will send to the driver. Formats supported by the driver are: ODBCDriver2 and RowBinaryWithNamesAndTypes

Note, that currently there is a difference in timezone handling between ODBCDriver2 and RowBinaryWithNamesAndTypes formats: in ODBCDriver2 date and time values are presented to the ODBC application in server's timezone, wherease in RowBinaryWithNamesAndTypes they are converted to local timezone. This behavior will be changed/parametrized in future. If server and ODBC application timezones are the same, date and time values handling will effectively be identical between these two formats.

Troubleshooting: driver manager tracing and driver logging

To debug issues with the driver, first things that need to be done are:

Building from sources

The general requirements for building the driver from sources are as follows:

  • CMake 3.13.5 and later
  • C++17 and C11 capable compiler toolchain:
    • Clang 4 and later
    • GCC 7 and later
    • Xcode 10 and later (on macOS 10.14 and later)
    • Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 and later

Additional requirements exist for each platform, which also depend on whether packaging and/or testing is performed.

See the exact steps for each platform in the corresponding section below:

The list of configuration options recognized during the CMake generation step is as follows:

Option Default value Description
CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE RelWithDebInfo Build type, one of: Debug, Release, RelWithDebInfo
CH_ODBC_ALLOW_UNSAFE_DISPATCH ON Allow unchecked handle dispatching (may slightly increase performance in some scenarios)
CH_ODBC_ENABLE_SSL ON Enable TLS/SSL (required for utilizing https:// interface, etc.)
CH_ODBC_ENABLE_INSTALL ON Enable install targets (required for packaging)
CH_ODBC_ENABLE_TESTING inherits value of BUILD_TESTING Enable test targets
CH_ODBC_PREFER_BUNDLED_THIRD_PARTIES ON Prefer bundled over system variants of third party libraries
CH_ODBC_PREFER_BUNDLED_POCO inherits value of CH_ODBC_PREFER_BUNDLED_THIRD_PARTIES Prefer bundled over system variants of Poco library
CH_ODBC_PREFER_BUNDLED_SSL inherits value of CH_ODBC_PREFER_BUNDLED_POCO Prefer bundled over system variants of TLS/SSL library
CH_ODBC_PREFER_BUNDLED_GOOGLETEST inherits value of CH_ODBC_PREFER_BUNDLED_THIRD_PARTIES Prefer bundled over system variants of Google Test library
CH_ODBC_PREFER_BUNDLED_NANODBC inherits value of CH_ODBC_PREFER_BUNDLED_THIRD_PARTIES Prefer bundled over system variants of nanodbc library
CH_ODBC_RUNTIME_LINK_STATIC OFF Link with compiler and language runtime statically
CH_ODBC_THIRD_PARTY_LINK_STATIC ON Link with third party libraries statically
CH_ODBC_DEFAULT_DSN_ANSI ClickHouse DSN (ANSI) Default ANSI DSN name
CH_ODBC_DEFAULT_DSN_UNICODE ClickHouse DSN (Unicode) Default Unicode DSN name
TEST_DSN_LIST ${CH_ODBC_DEFAULT_DSN_ANSI};${CH_ODBC_DEFAULT_DSN_UNICODE} ;-separated list of DSNs, each test will be executed with each of these DSNs

Configuration options above can be specified in the first cmake command (generation step) in a form of -Dopt=val.

Appendices

Run-time dependencies: Windows

All modern Windows systems come with preinstalled MDAC driver manager.

Another run-time dependecies are C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2017 or same for 2019, etc., depending on the package being installed, however the required DLL's are redistributed with the .msi installer, and you can choose to install them from there, if you don't have them installed in your system already.

Run-time dependencies: macOS

iODBC

Execute the following in the terminal (assuming you have Homebrew installed):

brew update
brew install poco openssl icu4c libiodbc

UnixODBC

Execute the following in the terminal (assuming you have Homebrew installed):

brew update
brew install poco openssl icu4c unixodbc

Run-time dependencies: Red Hat/CentOS

UnixODBC

Execute the following in the terminal:

sudo yum install openssl libicu unixODBC

iODBC

Execute the following in the terminal:

sudo yum install openssl libicu libiodbc

Run-time dependencies: Debian/Ubuntu

UnixODBC

Execute the following in the terminal:

sudo apt install openssl libicu unixodbc

iODBC

Execute the following in the terminal:

sudo apt install openssl libicu libiodbc2

Configuration: MDAC/WDAC (Microsoft/Windows Data Access Components)

To configure already installed drivers and DSNs, or create new DSNs, use Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator tool:

  • for 32-bit applications (and drivers) execute %systemdrive%\Windows\SysWoW64\Odbcad32.exe
  • for 64-bit applications (and drivers) execute %systemdrive%\Windows\System32\Odbcad32.exe

For full description of ODBC configuration mechanism in Windows, as well as for the case when you want to learn how to manually register a driver and have a full control on configuration in general, see:

Note, that the keys are subject to "Registry Redirection" mechanism, with caveats.

You can find sample configuration for this driver here (just map the keys to corresponding sections in registry):

Configuration: UnixODBC

In short, usually you will end up editing /etc/odbcinst.ini and /etc/odbc.ini for system-wide driver and DSN entries, and ~/.odbcinst.ini and ~/.odbc.ini for user-wide driver and DSN entries.

There can be exceptions to this, as these paths are configurable during the compilation of UnixODBC itself, or during the run-time via ODBCINI, ODBCINSTINI, and ODBCSYSINI.

For more info, see:

You can find sample configuration for this driver here:

These samples can be added to the corresponding configuration files using the odbcinst tool (assuming the package is installed under /usr/local):

odbcinst -i -d -f /usr/local/share/doc/clickhouse-odbc/config/odbcinst.ini.sample
odbcinst -i -s -l -f /usr/local/share/doc/clickhouse-odbc/config/odbc.ini.sample

Configuration: iODBC

In short, usually you will end up editing /etc/odbcinst.ini and /etc/odbc.ini for system-wide driver and DSN entries, and ~/.odbcinst.ini and ~/.odbc.ini for user-wide driver and DSN entries.

In macOS, if those INI files exist, they usually are symbolic or hard links to /Library/ODBC/odbcinst.ini and /Library/ODBC/odbc.ini for system-wide, and ~/Library/ODBC/odbcinst.ini and ~/Library/ODBC/odbc.ini for user-wide configs respectively.

There can be exceptions to this, as these paths are configurable during the compilation of iODBC itself, or during the run-time via ODBCINI and ODBCINSTINI. Note, that ODBCINSTINI in iODBC contains the full path to the file, while for UnixODBC it is a file name, and the file itself is expected to be under ODBCSYSINI dir.

For more info, see:

You can find sample configuration for this driver here:

Enabling driver manager tracing: MDAC/WDAC (Microsoft/Windows Data Access Components)

Comprehensive explanations (possibly, with some irrelevant vendor-specific details though) on how to enable ODBC driver manager tracing could be found at the following links:

Enabling driver manager tracing: UnixODBC

Comprehensive explanations (possibly, with some irrelevant vendor-specific details though) on how to enable ODBC driver manager tracing could be found at the following links:

Enabling driver manager tracing: iODBC

Comprehensive explanations (possibly, with some irrelevant vendor-specific details though) on how to enable ODBC driver manager tracing could be found at the following links:

Building from sources: Windows

Build-time dependencies

CMake bundled with the recent versions of Visual Studio can be used.

An SDK required for building the ODBC driver is included in Windows SDK, which in its turn is also bundled with Visual Studio.

You will need to install WiX toolset to be able to generate .msi packages. You can download and install it from WiX toolset home page.

Build steps

All of the following commands have to be issued in Visual Studio Command Prompt:

  • use x86 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2019 or equivalent for 32-bit builds
  • use x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2019 or equivalent for 64-bit builds

Clone the repo with submodules:

git clone --recursive git@github.com:ClickHouse/clickhouse-odbc.git

Enter the cloned source tree, create a temporary build folder, and generate the solution and project files in it:

cd clickhouse-odbc
mkdir build
cd build

# Configuration options for the project can be specified in the next command in a form of '-Dopt=val'

# Use the following command for 32-bit build only.
cmake -A Win32 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo ..

# Use the following command for 64-bit build only.
cmake -A x64 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo ..

Build the generated solution in-place:

cmake --build . --config RelWithDebInfo
cmake --build . --config RelWithDebInfo --target package

...and, optionally, run tests (note, that for non-unit tests, preconfigured driver and DSN entries must exist, that point to the binaries generated in this build folder):

cmake --build . --config RelWithDebInfo --target test

...or open the IDE and build all, package, and test targets manually from there:

cmake --open .

Building from sources: macOS

Build-time dependencies

You will need macOS 10.14 or later, Xcode 10 or later with Command Line Tools installed, as well as up-to-date Homebrew available in the system.

Install Homebrew using the following command, and follow the printed instructions on any additional steps required to complete the installation:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Then, install the latest Xcode from App Store. Open it at least once to accept the end-user license agreement and automatically install the required components.

Then, make sure that the latest Command Line Tools are installed and selected in the system:

sudo rm -rf /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools
sudo xcode-select --install

Reboot.

Build-time dependencies: iODBC

Execute the following in the terminal:

brew update
brew install git cmake make poco openssl icu4c libiodbc

Build-time dependencies: UnixODBC

Execute the following in the terminal:

brew update
brew install git cmake make poco openssl icu4c unixodbc

Build steps

Clone the repo recursively with submodules:

git clone --recursive git@github.com:ClickHouse/clickhouse-odbc.git

Enter the cloned source tree, create a temporary build folder, and generate a Makefile for the project in it:

cd clickhouse-odbc
mkdir build
cd build

# Configuration options for the project can be specified in the next command in a form of '-Dopt=val'.

# You may also add '-G Xcode' to the next command, in order to use Xcode as a build system or IDE, and generate the solution and project files instead of Makefile.
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo -DOPENSSL_ROOT_DIR=$(brew --prefix)/opt/openssl -DICU_ROOT=$(brew --prefix)/opt/icu4c ..

Build the generated solution in-place:

cmake --build . --config RelWithDebInfo
cmake --build . --config RelWithDebInfo --target package

...and, optionally, run tests (note, that for non-unit tests, preconfigured driver and DSN entries must exist, that point to the binaries generated in this build folder):

cmake --build . --config RelWithDebInfo --target run_tests

...or, if you configured the project with '-G Xcode' initially, open the IDE and build all, package, and run_tests targets manually from there:

cmake --open .

Building from sources: Red Hat/CentOS

Build-time dependencies: UnixODBC

Execute the following in the terminal:

sudo yum install epel-release
sudo yum groupinstall "Development Tools"
sudo yum install centos-release-scl
sudo yum install devtoolset-8
sudo yum install git cmake3 rpm-build openssl-devel libicu-devel unixODBC-devel

Build-time dependencies: iODBC

Execute the following in the terminal:

sudo yum install epel-release
sudo yum groupinstall "Development Tools"
sudo yum install centos-release-scl
sudo yum install devtoolset-8
sudo yum install git cmake3 rpm-build openssl-devel libicu-devel libiodbc-devel

Build steps

All of the following commands have to be issued right after this one command issued in the same terminal session:

scl enable devtoolset-8 -- bash

Clone the repo with submodules:

git clone --recursive git@github.com:ClickHouse/clickhouse-odbc.git

Enter the cloned source tree, create a temporary build folder, and generate a Makefile for the project in it:

cd clickhouse-odbc
mkdir build
cd build

# Configuration options for the project can be specified in the next command in a form of '-Dopt=val'

cmake3 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo ..

Build the generated solution in-place:

cmake3 --build . --config RelWithDebInfo
cmake3 --build . --config RelWithDebInfo --target package

...and, optionally, run tests (note, that for non-unit tests, preconfigured driver and DSN entries must exist, that point to the binaries generated in this build folder):

cmake3 --build . --config RelWithDebInfo --target test

Building from sources: Debian/Ubuntu

Build-time dependencies: UnixODBC

Execute the following in the terminal:

sudo apt install build-essential git cmake libpoco-dev libssl-dev libicu-dev unixodbc-dev

Build-time dependencies: iODBC

Execute the following in the terminal:

sudo apt install build-essential git cmake libpoco-dev libssl-dev libicu-dev libiodbc2-dev

Build steps

Assuming, that the system cc and c++ are pointing to the compilers that satisfy the minimum requirements from Building from sources.

If the version of cmake is not recent enough, you can install a newer version by folowing instructions from one of these pages:

Clone the repo with submodules:

git clone --recursive git@github.com:ClickHouse/clickhouse-odbc.git

Enter the cloned source tree, create a temporary build folder, and generate a Makefile for the project in it:

cd clickhouse-odbc
mkdir build
cd build

# Configuration options for the project can be specified in the next command in a form of '-Dopt=val'

cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo ..

Build the generated solution in-place:

cmake --build . --config RelWithDebInfo
cmake --build . --config RelWithDebInfo --target package

...and, optionally, run tests (note, that for non-unit tests, preconfigured driver and DSN entries must exist, that point to the binaries generated in this build folder):

cmake --build . --config RelWithDebInfo --target test