Testing Database Connections from the Command Line

Posit Pro drivers allow you to easily connect your Workbench & Connect servers to external databases. The steps to install these drivers can be found here:
https://docs.posit.co/pro-drivers/workbench-connect/

Databases have many moving parts, and it can often occur that your IT team will need to liaise with your database team to troubleshoot issues. It's worth mentioning that databases are formally outside of Posit's support SLA! However, there are some steps that can help point you in the right direction. 

Your best option is to isolate our product, and try to connect to your database natively from the command line. You can test connections by running isql, which is a command line tool for interactive SQL queries. To do so, you will need to create an odbc.ini file in the /etc directory.

To create a new DSN:

• Edit the file /etc/odbc.ini
• Add a new entry for your desired database type by copying over the sample from /opt/rstudio-drivers/odbc.ini.sample
• Ensure that the Driver setting in the DSN refers to the corresponding driver name or path listed in /etc/odbcinst.ini
• Modify the entry with your desired connection parameters

For example, to add a SQL Server connection:

[test]
Driver = SQLServer
Server = my.server.name
Database = dbname
Port = 1433

To test this connection, run the following command in the terminal:

isql -v test