Named Pipes Client Connections
The following procedure describes how to test a network connection when using Named Pipes as the IPC mechanism.
To test a Named Pipes connection
- At the operating-system command prompt on the client workstation, type:
net view \\servername
When using net view, servername is the name of the server to which you want to connect.
For example, to check the connection between a Named Pipes client and a server named \\SEATTLE1, type the following on the client:
net view \\SEATTLE1
If the connection is open, the output looks something like this:
Shared resources at \\SEATTLE1
SQL Server
Sharename Type Used as Comment
----------------------------------------------------
PUBLIC Disk Public Files
The command completed successfully.
To verify connection to a server's named pipe
- From a command prompt, type:
net use \\servername\IPC$
When using net use, servername is the server to which you want to connect.
For example:
net use \\SEATTLE1\IPC$
The command completed successfully
If the connection between the client workstation and the server is open but you still cannot connect to Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000, test the network and local named pipes using the makepipe and readpipe utilities. These utilities are included with SQL Server to help test the integrity of network named pipes.
The makepipe and readpipe utilities are installed during installation of both the client and server components. There are different versions of these utilities for the different operating systems on which they run: makepipe runs on Microsoft Windows NT®; readpipe runs on Windows NT, Microsoft Windows®, and MS-DOS®. Be sure to use the correct version for the operating system that you are testing. (The version that runs on Windows is named readpipe. If the SQL Server tools are installed, readpipe is located in the \Msqql\Binn directory; no icon is created for it.)
To test the integrity of the network named pipe services
- At the operating system command prompt on the server, type:
makepipe
The makepipe utility returns the following information:
Making PIPE:\pipe\abc read to write delay (seconds):0 Waiting for Client to Connect...SQL Server is waiting for a client to connect.
- At the operating system command prompt on the client workstation, type:
readpipe /Sserver_name /Dstring
When using readpipe, server_name is the network server name of the SQL Server on which makepipe was started and string is a test character string. If the string contains spaces, it must be enclosed in double quotation marks. There are no spaces between /S and the server name, and no spaces between /D and the string.
For example, to connect to a SQL Server installation named myserver, type one of the following:
readpipe /Smyserver /Dhello
readpipe /Smyserver /D"hello there"
readpipe /Smyserver /D'hello there'
The strings specified in the first two readpipe statements are treated identically.
If a network named pipe connection can be established, the client workstation returns the following information to each of the previous commands, respectively:
SvrName:\\myserver PIPE :\\myserver\pipe\abc DATA :hello Data Sent: 1 : hello Data Read: 1 : hello SvrName:\\myserver PIPE :\\myserver\pipe\abc DATA :hello there Data Sent: 1 :hello there Data Read: 1 :hello there SvrName:\\myserver PIPE :\\myserver\pipe\abc DATA :hello Data Sent: 1 : 'hello Data Read: 1 : 'helloIf a network named pipe connection can be established, the makepipe utility returns information similar to this:
Waiting for Client to Connect... Waiting for client to send... 1 Data Read: hello Waiting for client to send... 2 Pipe closed Waiting for Client to Connect... Waiting for client to send... 1 Data Read: hello there Waiting for client to send... 2 Pipe closed Waiting for Client to Connect... Waiting for client to send... 1 Data Read: 'hello Waiting for client to send... 2 Pipe closed Waiting for Client to Connect...At this point, SQL Server is waiting for a client to connect. The readpipe utility can be run from other workstations.
- When testing is complete, go to the server on which the makepipe utility is running and press either CTRL+BREAK or CTRL+C.
If the results are different from those in Step 2, network named pipe services are not available. If you are using Named Pipes as the IPC mechanism, clients cannot connect to SQL Server until a named pipe is available. These utilities attempt to open and use a named pipe; they do not stress the named pipe connection.