odbcinst: SQLGetPrivateProfileString failed with Unable to find component name - odbc

Question

I am able to use unixodbc without any problem with my default user. But when I switch to another user, I get an error.
[centos# ~]$ odbcinst -q -s
[ODBC]
[Amazon Redshift DSN 32]
[centos# ~]$ su ruser
Password:
[ruser# centos]$ odbcinst -q -s
odbcinst: SQLGetPrivateProfileString failed with Unable to find component name.
Environment variables are set in both of the users:
AMAZONREDSHIFTODBCINI=/etc/amazon.redshiftodbc.ini
ODBCSYSINI=/usr/local/odbc
ODBCINI=/etc/odbc.ini
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/local/lib/libodbcinst.so
Odbc configuration is as follows:
[ruser# centos]$ odbcinst -j
unixODBC 2.3.4
DRIVERS............: /usr/local/odbc /odbcinst.ini
SYSTEM DATA SOURCES: /usr/local/odbc /odbc.ini
FILE DATA SOURCES..: /usr/local/odbc /ODBCDataSources
USER DATA SOURCES..: /etc/odbc.ini
SQLULEN Size.......: 8
SQLLEN Size........: 8
SQLSETPOSIROW Size.: 8
By the way, I don't understand why there are spaces in the above paths. I don't know if there is a way to change them. Any ideas to solve this issue? Overall odbc configuration seems the same in both of the users.

Answer 1

I found the exact same issue on Centos, where I could use the default centos user to connect, but not any other users.
I was able to resolve the issue by copying the working user (or system) odbc.ini and odbcinst.ini files across into the home directory of the other user, like so (where I have renamed them to .odbc.ini and .odbcinst.ini respectively):
~/.odbc.ini
[MSSQLTest]
Driver = ODBC Driver 17 for SQL Server
Server = tcp:<ip of server>
~/.odbcinst.ini
[ODBC Driver 17 for SQL Server]
Description=Microsoft ODBC Driver 17 for SQL Server
Driver=/opt/microsoft/msodbcsql17/lib64/libmsodbcsql-17.2.so.0.1
UsageCount=1
Finally, I just had to set the following environment variables inside my ~/.bashrc file, and I was able to connect.
export ODBCSYSINI="<full path to user folder, which would be the evaluated path of {echo ~}>"
export ODBCINSTINI=".odbcinst.ini"
export ODBCINI="<full path to user folder, which would be the evaluated path of {echo ~}>/.odbc.ini"
For some reason, I wasn't able to use ~ to reference the user folders, so I had to manually specify the full user path in the environment variables, and thus my complete .bashrc file is simply:
export ODBCSYSINI="/home/mitch"
export ODBCINSTINI=".odbcinst.ini"
export ODBCINI="/home/mitch/.odbc.ini"
With this setup, I could now run the following and connect successfully:
$ isql -v MSSQLTest <sql server username> <sql server password>
+---------------------------------------+
| Connected! |
| |
| sql-statement |
| help [tablename] |
| quit |
| |
+---------------------------------------+
SQL>