Scenario

Have some perl code that wants to access Microsoft SQL Server 2005.   The SQL Server is configured to only allow SSL connections for security reasons.

Solution 

Here are the parts you will need:

• Perl on Linux (given)
• DBI ... http://dbi.perl.org/
• Unix ODBC (or equivalent like iODBC) ... http://www.unixodbc.org/
• FreeTDS (or equivalent ODBC driver) ... http://www.freetds.org/
• OpenSSL ... http://www.openssl.org/
• TLS

Resources

Microsoft guidance on accessing SQL Server with Perl
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb497071.aspx 

Thanks for Brian on helping figure this out :) ... I am just the messenger.