Users connecting from a DataServer application need to provide their foreign data source credentials to the make a connection.

You can make a secure connection to a foreign database in the following ways:

  • Wait for the Data Administration tool to prompt you for your data source user ID and password.
  • Provide a -U and -P parameter during OpenEdge client startup or as a parameters (.pf) file.
  • Add user ID and password in the Connection Parameters field of your logical database so that they are picked up for processing with the foreign data source connection.
  • Use the CONNECT statement to pass the user ID and password values.

The OpenEdge DataServer for MS SQL Server supports encoding user credentials. Use the genpassword utility to securely encode user credentials for foreign databases by specifying an encoding prefix, for example ae2h1. For more information, see genpassword and Encoding prefix.

Based on your requirements, you can use the following combinations of credential values:
  • Use clear text values for both the user ID and password.
  • Use clear text value for the user ID and encoded value for the password or the other way around.
  • Use the same encoding prefix for the user ID and password.
  • Use different encoding prefixes for the user ID and password.
Note:
  • The default prefix for encoding login credentials is ae2h1.
  • When creating user credentials, it is recommended to avoid using any encoding prefixes supported by the genpassword utility. For example, ae2h1 should not be used as either a username or password.
The following example shows how to encode credentials using the genpassword utility and then use the encoded credentials to connect with the data source. For example, if the user ID and password for connecting to a MS SQL Server database is progress, you can generate the encoded credentials with ae2h1 as follows:
genpassword -password progress -prefix ae2h1
As a result, the genpassword utility generates an ae2h1 encoded password:
ae2h1::e41027ea0710535e4bd4e2987d5647c95c1dd9988a7b5a4c18ec208017e7b67a9f4546afa452ff0d332f1fa703101923
You can connect to the data source using clear text credentials as follows:
CONNECT <dsn> -ld <logical-database> -dt MSS
-U progress 
-P progress
Alternatively, you can connect to the data source using encoded credentials as follows:
CONNECT <dsn> -ld <logical-database> -dt MSS
-U ae2h1::e41027ea0710535e4bd4e2987d5647c95c1dd9988a7b5a4c18ec208017e7b67a9f4546afa452ff0d332f1fa703101923 
-P ae2h1::e41027ea0710535e4bd4e2987d5647c95c1dd9988a7b5a4c18ec208017e7b67a9f4546afa452ff0d332f1fa703101923