Understanding ODBC Data Sources (DSN)

Posted: 23.6.1998 10.09.48 (EET/GMT+2)

If your application needs to connect to a database, ODBC Data Sources provide a common way to configure database connections.

ODBC (Open DataBase Connection) uses drivers to communicate with different database systems. You can configure Data Sources through Windows Control Panel. The applet to use is named "ODBC Data Sources".

This tool allows you to configure multiple different DSN types. The most common types are:

User DSN
System DSN
File DSN

A System DSN is available to all users on the machine and is commonly used by server applications.

Applications can connect using the DSN name instead of specifying database details directly. DSNs are useful when working with SQL Server, Oracle, Access, or other ODBC-compatible databases.