How to set up MSDE to run MonTel on your network

MSDE is a limited version of MS SQL Server 7.0 provided under the relevant license agreement from microsoft to run ONLY the MonTel Client Data base. In this topic MSDE will be used instead of SQL Server. But for most instances what applies to SQL Server also applies to MSDE.

This topic deals with installing the MSDE Server. For a blow by blow account of getting MSDE or SQL running in MonTel see: How to update or set up MonTel to use SQL Client Server databases rather than Jet

If any other editions of SQL Server are installed on a computer, then MSDE is not required, since all editions of SQL Server are capable of hosting any databases that rely upon MSDE, and may possibly exhibit greater performance.

In most typical MonTel installations MSDE will be installed on only one computer. (In some rare instances where multiple organisations are sharing one PABX, here may be more than one MSDE server).

MSDE is limited by allowing only 5 concurrent work loads (which is enough for most standard MonTel installations), and none of the SQL graphical administrations tools, such as Enterprise manager. This DOES NOT mean that MSDE is limited to 5 users, in fact we have had MSDE running with more than 50 users with no discernible slow down in performance.

Enterprise manager is no really require, since the default settings of SQL Server 7.0 (MSDE) work well with MonTel. The only issues that need to be addressed by the user or the client site, is backup and some limited maintenance.

We strongly recommend that you install MSDE on a Windows 2000 computer. Windows 2000 is a lot more robust than Windows NT 4 and Windows 9x, and running MSDE as a service on Windows 9x computers is limited. In addition Windows 9x computers will not allow you to use the integrated security mode. See How to prepare MS SQL Server for MonTel and other SQL Server issues for more information.

We also recommend once it is installed that the clients are set up to use the TCP/IP library if it is running on a TCP/IP network. See How to select up the correct MS SQL network libraries for MonTel on both the Server and Client.

We would also recommend that a reasonably powerful computer is used for MSDE, and that it has about a Gigabyte free to allow for any likely disk space contingencies.

According to microsoft:

A typical MSDE installation requires 55 megabytes (MB) of local hard drive space, and 64 MB of system memory is recommended. MSDE is for use with Windows 98, Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 4 or later installed, and Windows 2000. Each platform has slightly different requirements, and certain features are available under Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0.

Because of system limitations of the platform and performance issues, Windows 95/98 installations of SQL Server (and hence MSDE) do not have the following capabilities:

· Incoming Named Pipe connections

· Windows NT Authentication

· Asynchronous I/O

· Transaction based publishing

· Clustering

· Full text search

· Auto detection of unicode files

· Windows NT Event log.

MSDE runs on both Workstation and Server editions of Windows NT 4.0. Service Pack 4 is required to run MSDE on any Windows NT 4.0 platform. MSDE runs on all editions of Windows 2000.

At an absolute minimum MSDE requires at least a Pentium 166, 32 MB with 80Mb of free hard drive space.

Installation of MSDE

In version 2.10 InstMon was renamed SetupMT.

If SetupMT is run on the same computer as the MSDE software is to be installed, you can select the tick box at the final SetupMT screen to silently install MSDE as well.

However, this is really running the equivalent of the "INSTALL.BAT" file found in the support/MSDE folder in the MonTel application directory. INSTALL.BAT can be run later on the correct computer to install MSDE. It uses the LOCAL.ISS unattended script install file. This file is created by SetupMT, and includes the default parameters, and other settings generated by information gathered by SetupMT. The default UNATTENDED.ISS is supplied as an example file.

You should be able to remove MSDE if require by running the REMOVE.BAT file in the same folder.

Security

There is a special user in Standard (SQL Server Authentication) Mode called 'sa' (System Administrator) which has control over every aspect of the SQL Server. This user should always be secured by password, even if only integrated mode is used, since mixed and integrated mode settings can be changed by a single entry in the Windows registry. By default MSDE installs 'sa' with a blank password. This should be changed by running OSQL and using the sp_password command. From a Command prompt on the machine that has MSDE (Or SQL Server) enter the following commands, where {newpassword} is the new password for the "sa" account. (The curly brackets should NOT be entered).

C:\>osql -Usa -P

1> USE Master

2> GO

1> EXEC sp_password NULL, '{newpassword}', 'sa'

2> GO

Password changed.

1> exit

sp_password cannot be used with Microsoft Windows NT® security accounts. Users connecting to SQL Server through their Windows NT network account are authenticated by Windows NT, therefore their passwords can be changed only in Windows NT. See How to prepare MS SQL Server for MonTel and other SQL Server issues.

Make sure you remember the new password. It will be needed for the installation.

For more information on security see the MS Web site: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;325022

Backup

There is now a provision made in MonTel for running a back up from MSDE. See the topic :How to use MonTel to backup an SQL Server database which includes description for the PABX.INI settings AutoImportSQLBackUpMasterClientDB or AutoExportSQLBackUpMasterClientDB (and optionally SQLBackupPath for the location).

Other Administration.

The other major administration task is to watch for disk space. MonTel Databases can expand to use up to 750 MB of space, so having a Gigabyte free is easily enough space for safety.

Other administration tasks that may need to be undertaken from time to time might include; Shrinking the database files or increasing the maximum size of the database.

Some sample scripts have been included in the support/msde folder in the MonTel Application directory, that can be run in OSQL to perform some basic tasks. These scripts will need to be modified to correctly use the right database name and paths. These scripts include: backup.sql, restore.sql, increase.sql and shrink.sql.

Security is an issues with MSDE (and SQL Server). Note the importance of securing the 'sa' account above. See also the Microsoft web site for: http://www.microsoft.com/security/security_bulletins/ms02020_sql.asp.