Comments on: Installing PHP 5.3 on Microsoft IIS

By: Andrew Kriner

Andrew Kriner — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 06:08:00 +0000

Good post, will frequent your site.

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 00:00:12 +0000

Just want to mention that there is a newer version of the SQL Server Driver for PHP out (v2.0):
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=80e44913-24b4-4113-8807-caae6cf2ca05

Just swapping out the DLL for the new one and restarting the web server should be enough, or if you want to rewrite it using the PDO option, that’s available too. (I have not tried out PDO.)

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 07:17:13 +0000

I guess the route you choose depends on what you’re doing. I chose to separate the loop and save the results temporarily. Somehow I feel that opening up another connection just uses up more resource and memory. (I have no tests to back that case up.) If your application is public and will have many users, it might even hit that database connection limit quicker (whatever that limit may be). Mine’s an internal app, so I’m not really worried about it.

Yep, my IIS and SQL Server are two different servers. I’m sure that’s why it thinks I’m trying to log in as a null user.

By: Anil

Anil — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 04:31:53 +0000

That is funny. I was just about to sit down to do exactly what you have described above. I want to add records to a table, but first I want to check if a duplicate exists. I believe that above is the way I would do that. Anyway, opening up two DB connections seems like a good enough way to go.

Are your IIS and SQL servers on different servers? That is the only scenario I can see that you would get a null user.

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:16:27 +0000

I’m glad that everything is working out. Just to give you a heads up on something I came upon which gave me a huge headache and took a while to figure out. Using SQL Server 2000 and this SQL Server Driver, you cannot call another statement while actively in a statement. Here’s a quick example of what I’m talking about:

$result = query('...');
while ($row = fetch_array($result)) {
  $result2 = query('...');  // this will fail
  while ($line = fetch_array($result)) {
    // more code
  }
}

This is because SQL Server 2000 does not support Multiple Active Result Set (MARS), which is only available from 2005+. Do a search for more info. But if you come upon such a scenario, you’ll have to either open up another SQL connection, or save the results from the first statement, then run the second statement separately. I will write an article about it with more details, but I just want to give you a heads up since you have this combo. The old PHP 5.2 MSSQL extension apparently allowed us to do this nested statement without complaining. I’m not sure how, but I imagined it must have opened up an extra connection transparently.

As for the null user, I just left out the username/password part of the connection array (as mentioned on the docs with using Windows Auth), and it said (null) was not a valid user. (And I’m sure there is no such user.) I use IIS6.0 and SQL Server 2000, like yours.

By: Anil

Anil — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 05:11:10 +0000

I am happy to report that the SQL queries are working. However, I did have to change a bunch of function names from using the mssql_ prefix to the using the sqlsrv_prefix. e.g.
mssql_fetch_array to sqlsrv_fetch_array.

Never heard of a (null) user. Are you sure you were using Windows Authentication? Which Web Server. I am only familiar with IIS.

Anyway thanx much for your help.

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 09:20:58 +0000

Great! Let me know how it goes, and if you get any further on Windows Auth.
I took a shot yesterday at just leaving the user/pass out of the connection, and I got a similar error you got for login failed, except mine said that ‘(null)’ was not a valid user…

By: Anil

Anil — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 17:39:45 +0000

It worked! Let me qualify that.

As far as I can tell, Windows Authentication still does not work for me. However, I did create a new login on the SQL Server which used SQL Server Authentication and defaulted to the database I needed. I now get a connection!

I have not tried any queries yet, but I am sure they will work – will report back. Also, I will let you know if Windows Auth works.

Cheers!

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 18:50:53 +0000

There is a web version of the SQL Server Driver documentation if it’s more convenient for you:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee229551%28v=SQL.10%29.aspx

I see. I don’t have experience with SharePoint so I don’t know how the database is set up and how users work. The SQL Server 2000 I have access to is a company installation that I don’t have admin rights to, so I can’t really authorize a Windows account for it.

Do you have admin rights to your database server, or request rights? If so, what if you tried setting up a local database user and using SQL Server Authentication instead?

By the way, is your PHP Server and your SQL Server on the same box, or separate?

By: Anil

Anil — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 17:44:59 +0000

Yes, I have used exactly what you had suggested and also the code in the link in your second message. In fact, that very same example is in the help file SQLServerDriverForPHP.chm you mentioned earlier.

I have searched extensively on Google and MSDN, and tried all kinds of combinations. It seems this error message is common for Sharepoint installations, but their fixes have not worked for me – at least the ones that appear to apply.

So still no juice.