International Informix Users Group

	Informix News

16 October 08 - VendorRate - Informix Earns Top Customer Satisfaction Score on VendorRate in Q3... Read 14 August 08 - IIUG.org - Sellout Expected for the 2009 IIUG Informix Conference... Read 29 April 08 - IntelligentEnterprise.com - IBM Informix Upgrade Enhances Clustering, Database Management... Read 29 April 08 - itweek.com - IBM 'Cheetah 2' mauls data costs... Read 28 April 08 - eWeek.com - IBM Uncages Cheetah 2 Data Server... Read 28 April 08 - CNNMoney.com - IBM Helps Clients Reduce Data Management Costs With New Informix Dynamic Server... Read 09 April 08 - CNNMoney.com - MediaSpan Embeds IBM Informix Dynamic Server Software for Delivering News to Print, Web and Wireless Devices... Read 08 April 08 - IT-Director.com - Informix seeks developers... Read 18 February 08 - marketwire.com - Icarus Studios Partners With IBM to Upgrade Performance, Availability for Its Online Games... Read 17 January 08 - eWeek.com - IBM Adds Mac Support to IDS for Higher Education... Read 17 January 08 - informationweek.com - Lotus Notes For iPhone Signals Closer Ties Between IBM, Apple... Read 16 January 08 - marketwire.com - IBM Informix Dynamic Server to Deliver Support for Mac OS X... Read 16 January 08 - internetnews.com - IBM's IDS to Support Mac Platform... Read 28 June 07 - REG Developer - IBM and Informix tie down Cheetah... Read 27 June 07 - CBRonline.com - IBM corrects its own Informix customer figures... Read 14 June 07 - vnunet.com - IBM changes spots with Informix 'Cheetah' database... Read 14 June 07 - eChannelLine - IBM expands scope for IDS... Read 14 June 07 - Resellernews - IBM: Informix database alive and kicking... Read 13 June 07 - DB2 Magazine - Cheetah is now out of the gate... Read 12 June 07 - IBM - IDS 11 release announcement (pdf)... Read 12 June 07 - ChannelWeb Network - IBM Uncages IDS 11, Aka Cheetah, Database... Read 12 June 07 - eWeek.com - IBM's 'Cheetah' Ready to Pounce... Read 12 June 07 - InformationWeek - IBM Unleashes 'Cheetah' Database... Read 12 June 07 - WebWire - IBM Strengthens Database Portfolio With New Informix Dynamic Server... Read 12 June 07 - Intelligent Enterprise - IBM Unveils Informix Upgrade... Read 12 June 07 - ComputerWeekly.com - IBM's Cheetah IDS makes leap to better data centre clustering... Read 12 June 07 - ebiz - IBM Unveils Next Generation Informix Dynamic Server... Read 12 June 07 - computerworld.com - Will 'Cheetah' help IBM's Informix chase down market share?... Read 12 June 07 - Internetnews.com - No Data Can Outrun This 'Cheetah'... Read 12 June 07 - de.internet.com - IBM neuer Datenbank-Server mit Codenamen Cheetah ist fertig... Read 12 June 07 - verifox.de - IBM stärkt Datenbank-Portfolio mit neuem Informix Dynamic Server... Read 12 June 07 - golem.de - Informix 11 vorgestellt... Read 12 June 07 - Computerwoche.de - IBM stellt neue Informix-Version vor... Read 12 June 07 - IBM.de - IBM stärkt Datenbank-Portfolio mit neuem Informix Dynamic Server... Read 12 June 07 - Heise - IBM gibt Informix 11 frei... Read 25 May 07 - Taiwan.CNET.com - Local Taiwan Informix user group established... (Chinese language) ... Read 18 May 07 - ChannelWeb Network - IBM Musters Partners For Cheetah Release... Read 18 May 07 - eWeek.com - IBM Looks to 'Cheetah' to Speed Up Blade Servers... Read 7 May 07 - DB2 Magazine - SQL Shortcuts - Use these tricks to generate IDS SQL scripts... Read Previous news items

Home Member Area About IIUG

How to install and use Informix SE and ESQL/C on Linux

This is a "HOWTO" document on the installation and configuration of the Informix Standard Engine (SE) database engine and ESQL/C development tool on Linux. This document was originally created by Nils Myklebust and is a work in progress. It should, however give you the most essential install information. More work needs to be done on how to use the products, particularly ESQL/C.

Nils can be reached at

NM Data AS
P.O.Box 9090 Gr—nland
N-0133 Oslo
Norway
E-mail: Nils.Myklebust@nmdata.com
Phone: +47 22 05 30 00
Fax: +47 22 05 31 11

Install the products

Do all the following while you are logged in as root:

Download or install the distribution files in some temporary directory, not where you plan to install the product. If you downloaded from the Informix site, you will need to unzip the files. If you have the CD you can use them directly off that. You end up with 3 tar files called ESQL.TAR, SE.TAR and CONNECT.TAR. If you unziped them they are probably in three similarly named directories (ESQLC, SE and ICONNECT respectively).

Create a group called informix

Create a user called informix. This user should be a member of the informix group and no other.

If it hasn't already done, create the directory where you want the Informix programs to be installed. Probably something like /usr/local/informix or wherever it's common to install local binaries and supporting files on Linux.

Set informix as owner and group on this directory and mode 755.

Set the INFORMIXDIR environement variable to the full path of this directory. For example, if the product will be installed in the /usr/local/informix directory, you would add:

export INFORMIXDIR=/usr/local/informix (korn/bourne shell)

setenv INFORMIXDIR=/usr/local/informix (csh)

to your, and other user's environments.

Change to this directory. Now you need to install each product in a specific order: tools first (ESQL/C in this case), then the engine (SE). Do this as follows:

A. Use tar to install the files for ESQL/C:

tar xvf /your_path_to_this_file/ESQL.TAR

B. Type./installesql to install and brand the ESQL/C product. You will be prompted for a serial number and key. These are case sensitive and should be entered as received.

C. Use tar again to install the SE engine:

tar xvf /your_path_to_this_file/SE.TAR

D. Type: ./installse to install and brand the engine. You will be prompted again for a serial number and key.

E. Change to the etc subdirectory of the INFORMIXDIR directory. Copy the sqlhosts file found there to another name:

cp sqlhosts sqlhosts.org

F. Edit the sqlhosts file. Towards the end it contains the following two lines:

demo_on onipcshm on_hostname on_servername demo_se seipcpip se_hostname sqlexec

Delete the first of these two lines, it's for the Informix Dynamic Server engine which isn't ported yet. If you have one on installed on another machine you can define it here for remote access, but don't do that until the SE engine works locally. For now, delete that line.

On the last remaining line, change the se_hostname entry to the real name of your machine.

You may also want to change the seipcpip entry for two reasons:

a. This entry means that the communication between your programs and the database engine will be via unnamed pipes. For some reason that may not work on your version of Linux.
b. The alternative is to use sesoctcp instead in this field. If so, it means TCP/IP will be used for communication between your programs and the database engine even when both run on the same machine.

Save this file with the same name and location: $INFORMIXDIR/etc/sqlhosts.

If you used seipcpip in the second field on the line in the sqlhosts file, you are now finished with the basic installation of the programs from Informix. You still have to set up users properly though.

If you used sesoctcp for TCP/IP based connections to the engine you also have to change the /etc/service file.
You then add the following line to that file:

sqlexec 1526/tcp # Informix SE

If this is the last line in that file you should make sure there is at least one blank line after it. In some cases there have been a bug where the communication didn't work without that blank line.

If an entry with the name sqlexec already exists in the /etc/services file, you may change sqlexec to anything you want, but must then also change the entry in the last field of the sqlhosts file.

If port number 1526 should allready be in use (it exists on some other line in the /etc/services file) you can use any other port number. Later if you want to communicate from other machines you have to use the same port number there. It's common to use port numbers from 1526 and up for Informix engines.

Now you have finished installing the base product.

I-Connect

I-Connect is something you need only if you want to connect to a database on a remote machine. You install that essentially like the other products.

1. Remember you are supposed to be in the Informix main install directory, the one defined by INFORMIXDIR above (but on another machine now). Use tar to install the I-Connect product:

tar xvf /your_path_to_this_file/CONNECT.TAR

2. Type: ./installconn to install and brand the products. You will be prompted for a serial number and key.

There will be more info on how to use this product later.

Create a database

You should not ever create a database while you are logged in as informix. For management of SQL databases you should create one special user for the sole purpose of creating databases, tables and do all other management tasks for all databases. (Sometimes you may want more than one such user if you create multiple databases. One database should however always be created and managed by one and the same user.) The username you use for this creation and management of databases should not be the same you use for normal tasks like creating programs or otherwise using the database. For pure testing purposes where you will be the sole user of the database you may of course create databases while logged in with your regular login name as well.

Create the user that is going to create and manage the database. This user needs a special home directory where the database or databases this user creates will later be stored. Make sure there is enough space on the device for the databases you intend to create. This user can not be a member of the informix group. That would break all security built into the database engine. Make this user a member of whatever other group you find convenient.

In the login script of this user (or in some common login script for all or many users) you have to set up some key environement variables. You have to set up at least the following:

INFORMIXDIR=/whatever_dir_you_installed_the_informix_products_in

In the above example you would set this to /usr/local/informix

INFORMIXSERVER=demo_se

Remember to make sure these are exported if you use a shell where that is required.

Append $INFORMIXDIR/bin to the end of the PATH variable. The following should work if you use sh, bash, ksh or a similar shell:

PATH=$PATH$INFORMIXDIR export PATH

Later it is highly likely that you will want to set the DBPATH variable. This should be set to point to the directory where you install your databases. Normaly the home directory of the database administrator login you created above. You may however leave it out initially. In that case all databases must be in the current directory whenever you execute a command that needs access to that database.

There are several other environement variables that you may want to set. See the documentation available at
http://www-3.ibm.com/software/data/informix/pubs/library/

You should set up the same environement variables for the informix user created earlier and for your own regular login.

If you want to create a database to start working on you can now log in as this database administration user and use dbaccess to create the database and it's tables and other things you may want in it.

If you are not well versed in Informix products you may want to install the dbaccess (sql) demonstration and/or the ESQL/C demonstration. I would do that the first time while logged in with my regular user name (not the database administration user name from above). I would also create a separate subdirectory for each of these demonstrations before I installed them.

To install these demonstrations go to the new empty directory and type:

dbaccessdemo7

A database called stores7 is created. This consists of a subdirectory called stores7.dbs where a set of .dat files contains each table in the database and corresponding .idx files contains the indexes for each table. A set of .sql files are also copied to the current directory.

Start dbaccess by typing dbaccess
Select Query-language in the ring menu
Select the stores7 database (the only one that will be displayed now).
Use the Choose menu choice and select one of the commands starting with "sel_
Use the Run menu to run it. You are alive if all this worked.

To install the ESQL/C demo with it's C programs you should create a special new subdirectory somewhere for that. Change to this directory and type the command:

esqldemo7

The same stores7 database will be installed in this subdirectory as well as several ESQL/C program files (those ending in .ec) and some other files. Unfortunately Informix forgot to include both a readme or howto file and a makefile. I don't know how to proceed from here. I hope however that someone who does will write about it and possibly add it to this HOWTO. Hopefully they will also include a very simple and useful makefile for the purpose. (There have been an unfortunate tendency by many to create very complex makefiles that are hard to understand. Some such are available at the http://www.iiug.org site.)

Further information

For further information the following list of sites may be useful:

http://www.iiug.org - particularly the software repository where many utilities and other things can be found.

Of course the http://www.informix.com/idn site where more information will be posted by Informix.

The http://www-3.ibm.com/software/data/informix/pubs/library/ is good to know about to find all relevant manuals.

Now read all the relevant manuals and you will be able to develop a lot of advanced and high performance database applications.

If you are of the type that do not read manuals now is the time to change that. It's not that Informix products requires much more reading than any other product. It's just that reading manuals will make everything so much easier and faster for you as you work with these excellent products. At least read fast through the manuals so you gain an understanding of what is there. That makes it so easy later to just look up what you need.