odbcinst

odbcinst is a command-line utility included with the unixODBC project. It provides programmatic management of the ODBC configuration on Unix-like systems by reading and writing to the ODBC driver and data source configuration files odbcinst.ini and odbc.ini.

odbcinst can list the installed drivers and data sources, install or remove driver definitions, and add or delete DSN definitions by applying configuration fragments. The driver definitions reside in odbcinst.ini, typically located at /etc/odbcinst.ini or /usr/local/etc/odbcinst.ini, while DSN definitions live in odbc.ini, often found at /etc/odbc.ini or in the user’s home directory as ~/.odbc.ini. The exact location may vary and environment variables ODBCINSTINI and ODBCINI can be used to override defaults.

Typical workflows involve registering a new driver by preparing an .ini fragment that describes the driver (name, description, path to the driver library, and optional setup path), then invoking odbcinst with options that apply the fragment to the relevant configuration file. To remove a driver, a corresponding uninstall operation is used. To create a system-wide DSN, a DSN fragment is prepared and installed into odbc.ini in the same manner.

Note that the exact command syntax and options depend on the unixODBC version in use; consult the manual page odbcinst(1) for precise usage. This tool is commonly used by database drivers to integrate with the ODBC Driver Manager and by system administrators to manage ODBC configurations.