topic SAS to Linux in Administration and Deployment

SAS to Linux Connection

msalam92 — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 14:12:02 GMT

Hi all,

I am trying to connect SAS to a linux box that holds particular files/ data.

1) How can this be done?

2) What type of access do I need?

I'd imagine coding a macro in enterprise guide highlighting all the connection information will do the job.

Please advise.

Thank You in advance.

SAS to Linux

msalam92 — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 14:13:01 GMT

Hi all,

I am trying to connect SAS to a linux box that holds particular files/ data.

1) How can this be done?

2) What type of access do I need?

I'd imagine coding a macro in enterprise guide highlighting all the connection information will do the job.

Please advise.

Thank You in advance.

Re: SAS to Linux Connection

Reeza — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 15:11:20 GMT

Depends a bit, how is your SAS installation set up? Are you running EG locally or on the server? Do you have admin access if it's the server version? Does your local computer have access to the linux server?

Re: SAS to Linux Connection

msalam92 — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 15:24:00 GMT

Hi Reeza,

We are running EG on the server, and do have admin access.

We have access to the Linux server via SSH.

How will the connection be made through EG? Code based solution?

Re: SAS to Linux Connection

Reeza — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 15:27:19 GMT

I don't think I know the answer to your question then, but it's likely under SAS Administration so I've moved your questions to the right forum - and merged them into one to avoid duplicates.

I *think* you may be able to use FILENAME to make the connection but not sure.

https://documentation.sas.com/?docsetId=lestmtsglobal&docsetTarget=p0xln1fiwsr340n1xxf4mkmfxp6f.htm&docsetVersion=9.4&locale=en#p1449umu0676bwn1laijz0kdea0k

Re: SAS to Linux Connection

msalam92 — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 18:10:43 GMT

Thanks Reeza.

To clarify; I want to connect SAS to a Linux box. That Linux box holds certain data files that I would like to take a read into SAS.

Hope that helps.

Re: SAS to Linux Connection

Reeza — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 18:15:41 GMT

It can be as simple as setting up a network drive on the server and then SAS will allow you to see it. If you need controlled access, ie only certain users then it may require some permissions settings in the SAS server.

Re: SAS to Linux Connection

Tom — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 18:16:24 GMT

What do you mean by "connect SAS"?

Are you running SAS on one linux machine and you want the SAS programs to be able to read the files from a different linux machine?

Might be easiest to ask your linux administrators to mount the disks onto the machine(s) where SAS is running so you can just treat them as local files.

NOTE that the FILENAME statement can link to different machines using a number of protocols. FTP, SFTP, HTTP, etc.

You could also potentially call system commands from your SAS program to copy the files to your local machine.

Is the remote machine also running SAS? Do you has SAS/Share licensed on that machine? If so you could share out SAS dataset via SAS/Share.

Re: SAS to Linux Connection

Reeza — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 18:16:49 GMT

And if you need a quicker answer, you may want to contact SAS Tech Support, they're the official support channel and you pay for support after all, definitely worht using. They can walk you through the steps needed.

Re: SAS to Linux Connection

msalam92 — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 18:24:00 GMT

Thank you for the response Tom!

So to clarify a bit more.

I am trying to use SAS to connect to an "outside" Linux box. That Linux box has files that I want to "read into" my SAS environment.

They are simple data drop files.

This I believe will be the easiest way for me to bring in the data from the Linux boxes to use for reporting in SAS.

Re: SAS to Linux Connection

Kurt_Bremser — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 18:28:31 GMT

Since the Linux box has SSH installed and running, you can use filename sftp.

Mind that you need to set up passwordless authentication with a public/private keypair before you can use this.

Re: SAS to Linux Connection

msalam92 — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 18:59:20 GMT

Hi Kurt,

Thank you so much for your response.

Where will the passwords need to be set up? And what will the passwords be for?

Re: SAS to Linux Connection

msalam92 — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 19:02:23 GMT

Thanks Reeza. I got in touch with the help desk folks.

They suggested created a LIBNAME and getting permissions to the box, then making the connection happen.

Or create a library in the metadata server.

Re: SAS to Linux Connection

Kurt_Bremser — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 19:26:57 GMT

You do not use passwords with SAS filename sftp. Instead you first establish public/private key authentication for your user (the one used to run the SAS session) from the commandline. The goal is to make

sftp user@host

work without being prompted for a password.

Re: SAS to Linux Connection

Reeza — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 19:41:25 GMT

Libname is for SAS data sets, are the data text files or SAS data sets? I was thinking text files.

Re: SAS to Linux Connection

msalam92 — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 19:45:27 GMT

They will come in three forms. Text files, csv files, and python scripts.

Re: SAS to Linux Connection

Kurt_Bremser — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 19:47:37 GMT

@msalam92 wrote:

They will come in three forms. Text files, csv files, and python scripts.

None of those are SAS datasets, so you won't use the libname statement for this.

Re: SAS to Linux Connection

msalam92 — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 20:27:06 GMT

What will be used instead? FILNAME?

Re: SAS to Linux Connection

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 30 Apr 2019 05:15:29 GMT

@msalam92 wrote:

What will be used instead? FILNAME?

Text files are read with infile and input statement, and you can either use filename sftp for creating a file reference to the remote file, which you later use in an infile, or infile sftp.

Re: SAS to Linux Connection

msalam92 — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 21:26:22 GMT

Thanks again Kurt.

I assume all the connection details and user name/password will be included in this block of code.

The user name/password will be of the one I am trying to connect to.