ASA Database Administration Guide
Connecting to a Database
Troubleshooting connections
When the DoBroadcast (DOBROAD) communication parameter is set to DIRECT or ALL, the network library looks for a database server on a network by broadcasting over the network using the CommLinks (LINKS) connection parameter.
The CommLinks (LINKS) parameter takes as argument a string listing the protocols to use and, optionally for each protocol, a variety of network communication parameters that tune the broadcast.
For more information about network communications parameters, see Network communications parameters.
Broadcasting over large networks searching for a server of a specific name can be time-consuming. Leaving the DoBroadcast (DOBROAD) communication parameter at the default value (ALL) speeds up network connections by saving the protocol the first connection to a server was found on, and its address, to a file and using that information for subsequent connections.
The server information is saved in a cached file named asasrv.ini. The file contains a set of sections, each of the following form:
[Server name] Link=protocol_name Address=address_string
The asasrv.ini file is located in your Adaptive Server Anywhere executable directory (the same directory as the ODBC/ DBLib DLL).
Note:It is very important that each server has a unique name. Giving different servers the same name can lead to identification problems. |
If the server name and protocol in the cache match the connection string, Adaptive Server Anywhere tries to connect using the cached address first. If that fails, or if the server name and protocol in the cache do not match the connection string, the connection string information is used to search for the server using a broadcast. If the broadcast is successful, the server name entry in the cache is overwritten. If no server is found, the server name entry in the cache is removed.