Running the MobiLink server

The MobiLink server opens database connections, via ODBC, with your consolidated database server. It then accepts connections from remote applications and controls the synchronization process.

Note

The mlsrv12 options allow you to specify how the MobiLink server works. To control what the server does during synchronization, you define scripts that are invoked at synchronization events. See Synchronization events.

Start the MobiLink server

Run mlsrv12. Use the -c option to specify the ODBC connection parameters for your consolidated database.

For information about connection parameters, see -c mlsrv12 option.

You must specify connection parameters. Other options are available, but are optional. These options allow you to specify how the server works. For example, you can specify a cache size and logging options. For more information about mlsrv12 options, see mlsrv12 syntax.

The MobiLink server needs an ODBC Data Source Name (DSN) to communicate with the consolidated database. A DSN includes information for the ODBC Driver Manager on where to load the ODBC driver. On Windows, ODBC data sources can be created with the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator. The bitness of the MobiLink server must match the bitness of the DSN. More precisely, a 64-bit MobiLink server must use a 64-bit DSN created via ODBC Data Source Administrator (64-bit). See Lesson 1: Setting up a MobiLink consolidated database.

Example

The following command starts the MobiLink server using the ODBC data source SQL Anywhere 12 CustDB to identify the consolidated database. Enter the entire command on one line.

mlsrv12 -c "DSN=SQL Anywhere 12 CustDB;UID=ml_server;PWD=sql" -zs MyServer -o mlsrv.log -vcr -x tcpip(port=3303)

In this example, the -c option provides a connection string that contains an ODBC data source name (DSN) and authentication. The -zs option provides a server name. The -o option specifies that the log file should be named mlsrv.log. The contents of mlsrv.log are verbose because of the -vcr option. The -x option opens a port for version 10 and later clients.

For more information about the options described in the previous example, see:

You can also start the MobiLink server as a Windows service or Unix daemon. See Run the MobiLink server outside the current session.

Required permissions

You must specify a database user for the MobiLink server to connect to the database server. You specify the database user with the mlsrv12 -c option or in the ODBC data source. See -c mlsrv12 option.

This database user must have full select, insert, update, and delete permissions on the MobiLink system tables, and must also have execute permissions on the MobiLink system procedures. By default, the database user who runs the MobiLink setup script has these permissions. If you want to use another database user to run the MobiLink server, you must grant permissions for that user on the ml_* tables and the ml_add_*_script system procedures.

For example, in a SQL Anywhere consolidated database you can grant the required permissions as follows:

CREATE USER DBUser IDENTIFIED BY SQL;
GRANT ALL ON ml_user to DBUser;
...
GRANT EXECUTE ON ml_add_table_script TO DBUser;
...

For an example of code that grants the necessary permissions to all MobiLink system objects, see Consolidated database upgrades.

For a list of all MobiLink system procedures, see MobiLink server system procedures.

The database user also needs the appropriate permission on all tables referenced in the MobiLink scripts, and execute permissions on any procedures referenced in the MobiLink scripts.

Some types of consolidated databases require the database user used by MobiLink server to have specific permissions against a small number of system tables and/or views. See the following topics for information about specific consolidated databases:

For more information about setup scripts, see Consolidated database setup.

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