setting up PostgreSQL on Linux RHL9 to allow ODBC connections from Windows

Hi,
I have seen a bunch of different documentation on how to set up to allow
ODBC, but I am a little confused about how much/what has to be set up to
allow an ODBC connection from Windows (mostly 2003, some XP) to an existing
PostgreSQL (7.4.6) database on Linux (RedHat 9 version 2.4.20-6smp).

Most of the documentation is talking about setting up Unix to Unix odbc, or
Windows to Windows, not Windows to Unix/Linux.

Some documentation talks about installing the "full" distribution on
Windows, but I just want to allow some Windows software that "speaks" ODBC
(SilkTest) to be able to connect to an existing database.

In the document
http://gborg.postgresql.org/project/psqlodbc/genpage.php?howto-redhat, it
says to download rpms and install them, but I don't really see any rpms for
this. I see source distributions at
http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/odbc/versions/src/, but nothing for version
7.4, just 7.3 and 8.0. I am reluctant to upgrade to 8.0, as I am not sure
it is stable yet, and my installation is running so well.

The howto-redhat document also talks about running:




psql -d template1 -f /usr/share/pgsql/odbc.sql

to modify template1, but what about existing databases?

I'm somewhat nervous about doing anything to potentially mess up anything
on my Linux server, as this is a production database.

Then, you have to set up the iodbc driver manager, etc. On this server, I
have had some issues with using rpm's in the past, and have often had to
resort to building things myself (configure, make, etc.)

I'm also not sure about how to specify a DSN to do the connection from the
Windows side (I'm primarily a Unix/Linux person).

Does anyone have any specific advice/experiences to offer on setting this
up as simply as possible?

Thanks,
Susan

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