Using Node odbc with Microsoft Access

Question

I am attempting to write a containerized Node application that intakes Microsoft Access databases and accesses the data within. I want to put the application in a docker container and wish to use npm odbc to interact with Access. I don't have much experience creating containers so much of this has been a learning process.

I am struggling to get odbc installed and configured for Access. Per the documentation that I linked, there are three requirements for odbc.

1. Install unixODBC and unixODBC-devel
2. Install ODBC drivers for target database
3. Define odbc.ini and odbcinst.ini

I am struggling to get any amount of odbc functionality working, so I assume the issue is that I'm not configuring the environment correctly. Here is my base Dockerfile where I define the container environment. Running the AccessDatabaseEngine.exe file returns a Not Found error, even though I'm pretty sure that the file should exist there. For now, I have commented out the line. The application code runs from a different set of Dockerfiles that build off this one.

# Use Ubuntu OS as base image
FROM ubuntu:latest

# Set env vars
ENV NPM_CONFIG_LOGLEVEL info

# odbc requirement #1
# Install unixODBC, unixODBC-devel, and curl
RUN apt-get update
RUN apt-get -y install unixodbc
RUN apt-get -y install unixodbc-dev
RUN apt-get -y install curl

# Download & install Node.js
RUN curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_12.x | bash
RUN apt-get -y install nodejs

# odbc requirement #2
# Install ODBC drivers for Access database
RUN curl -LJO https://download.microsoft.com/download/2/4/3/24375141-E08D-4803-AB0E-10F2E3A07AAA/AccessDatabaseEngine.exe
RUN cp AccessDatabaseEngine.exe /bin/
RUN chmod +x /bin/AccessDatabaseEngine.exe
# RUN ['/bin/AccessDatabaseEngine.exe'] # Error: #14 0.249 /bin/sh: 1 [/bin/AccessDatabaseEngine.exe]: not found

# Run node
CMD [ "node" ]

In my application, I attempt to use odbc like this. The connection string for odbc requirement #3 was found here:

// Test function to test out npm odbc
exports.export = async (file) => {
    // odbc requirement #3
    // Make Access connection
    const conn = await odbc.connect(`Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb, *.accdb)};DBQ=${file.path}`);

    // Execute test query
    const res = await conn.query('SELECT 1');
    console.log(JSON.stringify(res));
}

I feel pretty good about my implementation of odbc requirements #1 and #3, but I am struggling with #2 (Install ODBC drivers for target database). Not only am I struggling to run the AccessDatabaseEngine.exe, but I'm also not 100% sure that it's even the correct file to be trying to install. I ran into this and that seems like it might the odbc driver that I need. However, I tried dockerizing the code they gave and ran into more issues.

Again, I want to create a containerized Node application that uses the ODBC npm library to access the data within a Microsoft Access database. Does anybody have any experience doing this? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks ahead of time.

Answer 1

As it was said in the comments. I'm grasping at the wrong straws here. I cannot download Access Drivers onto my Linux machine. Per the driver system requirements here, I must use a Windows OS.