Highlights: Security Bulletin: Fixes available for CVE-2025-1991 H1-2581021

Welcome to the International Informix Users Group (IIUG) Insider! Designed for IIUG members and Informix user group leaders, this publication contains timely and relevant information for the IBM Informix community.

Editorial

Please join the IIUG Board and attend IBM TechXchange 2025. The event will take place on October 6-9, 2025 in Orlando, FL, USA.

Check out the Insider Conference Corner to find out how to get a 30% discount off TechXchange 2025 registration and other registration options.  You will also find the list of selected Informix sessions and speakers.

IMPORTANT: you will want to check out the Highlights section for information regarding a Security Notice related to an integer overflow issue.

We also have a Tech Talks scheduled on July 17, 2025, presented by Paul Watson. He will present a case study on how data from multiple Informix clusters can be consolidated to seed a MariaDB Warehouse.

We are seeking Informix related papers, articles, or content for our new “How To” section. If you have something you would like to include it in our next Insider, you can submit your content to Gary or Rhonda.

We look forward to seeing our Informix friends and making new Informix friends at IBM TechXchange 2025.

 

Rhonda Hackenburg
IIUG Insider Co-Editor
IIUG Board of Directors
rhonda@iiug.org  

 

Highlights

Security Bulletin: Fixes available for CVE-2025-1991 H1-2581021

Security Bulletin: Fixes available for CVE-2025-1991 H1-2581021: ‘An Integer Underflow During Informix Server Protocol Packet Processing Allows Attackers to Carry out a Denial-of-Service Attack’ for CVE-2025-1991 H1-2581021: ‘An Integer Underflow During Informix Server Protocol Packet Processing Allows Attackers to Carry out a Denial-of-Service Attack’

 

Conference Corner

IBM TechXchange Conference 2025 – Orlando, FL, USA

IBM TechXchange 2025

October 6-9, 2025

Orlando, Florida USA 

Are you having problems convincing management to let you attend?  Check out our reasons to attend flyer.  You might find something there to help you!

 

A special gift from IBM

IIUG members who register by August 31, 2025

will receive an IIUG 30% Discount off your full conference purchase.

Use code IIUG at checkout

 

Hurry!  Spots are limited. IBM is offering early access to Tuesday evening’s celebration at Universal Islands of Adventure to the first 1,000 people to register between June 18 and August 15 with a full conference purchase!

 

Other passes you can use to attend:

• Single Day Pass
• Community Day Pass – October 6
• Student Day Pass
• IBM Champions receive a complementary pass (you should receive an email from IBM)

 

NOTE: You will you will be taken to the IBM sign in page to register for this event.  You must have an IBM account to register for this event. There is a link on the page to create your IBM account.

 

The following 13 Informix sessions have been selected for TechXchange 2025:

• Managing and Optimizing and IBM Informix Server using the Sysmaster Database – Lester Knutsen; Advanced DataTools Corporation
• Using HDR/RSS or ER for server and IDS version – Paul Watson; Onint
• Database Operations (DbOps) – Davorin Kremenjas;  Sveucilisni racunski centar
• Externalize smartblob documents using new release of IBM Informix 15 – Vicente Salvador Cubedo; DEISTER, S.A.
• IDS 15.0 – Unlimited and Future Proof – John Lengyel; HCL
• Informix 4GL Futures – John Lengyel; HCL
• Upgrading versions and/or migrating platforms for your Informix Database – Joseph Veleeparambil; HCL
• Next-Gen Informix: Leveraging Cloud-Native Capabilities with Kubernetes and Containers – Kevin Mayfield; HCL
• All About Onconfig Parameters for Informix and PFSC (Partition Free Space Cache) Boost – John Lengyel; HCL
• Proactive Informix Administration – Mike Walker; xDB Systems
• Turn Your Informix Data in Data Products – Scott Norris; Actian
• Informix: Detecting and Avoiding Performance Issues Related to Storage and Multinode Systems – Vladimir Kolobrodov; HCL
• Informix Encryption Everywhere Everyway – Thomas Beebe; xDB Systems

The session schedule will be released soon.

 

We can’t wait to see you in Orlando!

#IIUG #IBMTechXchange #Informix

Rhonda Hackenburg
IIUG Board

 

Informix Corner

Informix Tech Talks on YouTube

Upcoming Informix Tech Talks

Date: July 17, 2025
Time: 1:00 PM EST
Title: Building a Data Warehouse with Informix and MariaDB
Speaker: Paul Watson, Oninit

This a case study showing how data from multiple Informix clusters can be consolidated and used to seed a MariaDB Warehouse. It will examine how to build the consolidation servers and discuss the issues of pushing this data to MariaDB.

Paul Watson has been using Informix for 35 years, moving to consultancy after 5 years. Along with three other consults formed Oninit  (UK), and eventually Oninit (US) in 2006. Paul travels globally specializing in ER, Timeseries and UDR work.

Register Now

Rhonda Hackenburg
IIUG Board

 

 

Last Informix Tech Talks Replay

Replay of the Last Informix Tech Talks:  Everything You Need to Know About Statistics and Data Distributions – Art Kagel, May 2025

Informix Tech Talks YouTube Channel

Our YouTube Channel now has:

• 560 subscribers (no new subscribers)
• 113 videos (no new videos)
• 23,662 views (459 additional views)

Informix Tech Talks YouTube Channel Videos

Past Informix Tech Talks Replays

 

In Search of Tech Talks Speakers

We are looking for additional speakers and especially any new speakers to share your Informix knowledge with our user Community via the IIUG Tech Talks. We will assist you in preparing for your Tech Talks presentation by prerecording your session. This will allow you to be available to answer any questions that come up in the chat during you presentation.

If you are interested in producing a 15 – 45-minute presentation, please contact either Art Kagel or Bruce Simms for additional information.

Rhonda Hackenburg
IIUG Board

 

Informix Training

Free Informix Tutorials Videos – a step by step approach to using Informix Database Servers are available at https://advancedatatools.com/tech-info/informix-tutorials/

 

 

RFE Corner

IBM has an RFE – Request For Enhancements website.
Please visit the RFE site to vote for your favorite enhancements and place new requests. It is friendly and has a nice look and feel.

Recent

 Reread SSL Keystore while Informix is running 

 

Popular 

Informix should be able to change owner on tables and any other objects (109 votes)

Backup Individual database, not entire instance (94 votes)

 

IBM Informix Forum Corner

Join and visit the IBM Informix Community Forum

Recent Posts:

Cast a datetime to character in default clause

Cannot connect to Informix database via Python

Stelo software as a replacement for Enterprise Replication

IBM Licensing issue

C4GL 7.51.FC4 ships *15a .so libraries and non-15a .so libraries that are in fact identical

WARNING: Buffer pool size is too small for read ahead operation

 

Gary Ben-Israel
IIUG Board

 

 

How To

In this corner I will write about things that can help in your day-to-day work. 

Most DBAs probably have their own ways to perform these tasks which may be different  than the way I do them. So, if you find an error or can think of a better way, please let me know. If not feel free to use these tips as is or modify them to fit your needs. 

This is a stored procedure that can be used when you try to delete a row and receive the following type of message:
Key value for constraint (informix.u2705_9212) is still being referenced 

This is really frustrating. The constraint points to the table’s primary key 

(which does not help much) but even when you figure out the referencing tables 

it can take you a while to scan through them and find those that are still referenced. 

We use a stored procedure called who_the_f. parameters are the referenced table name 

and the primary key value for the deleted row. It returns the referencing tables separated by comas. 

If there are no referencing tables it returns: “No references found!” 

Note: This stored procedure uses the view back_ref_view which was described in the May Insider.

create function exists_in_table(t_nm nvarchar(128),
                                c_name nvarchar(128), chk_val int)
       returning smallint
define sel_str nvarchar(255);
define k,j int;
let sel_str =
"select "||c_name||" from "||t_nm||
" where "||c_name||" = "||chk_val;
prepare prp_st from sel_str;
declare find_curs cursor for prp_st;
open find_curs;
let j = 0;
loop
fetch find_curs into k;
exit when SQLCODE = 100;
let j = 1;
exit;
end loop
close find_curs;
free find_curs;
return j;
end function;

create function who_the_f(tb_nm nvarchar(128), chk_val int)
returning lvarchar(2000)
define ret_str lvarchar(2000);
define j smallint;
define k smallint;
define sel_str lvarchar(500);
define referencing_t nvarchar(33);
define referencing_c nvarchar(33);
let k = 0;
let ret_str = "";
let sel_str =
"select referencing_table, referencing_column"||
" from back_ref_view where referenced_table = '"||tb_nm||
"' and cascading_delete = 'No'";
prepare prep_st1 from sel_str;
declare back_ref_curs cursor for prep_st1;
open back_ref_curs;

loop
fetch back_ref_curs
into referencing_t, referencing_c;
exit when SQLCODE = 100;
let j = exists_in_table(referencing_t, referencing_c, chk_val);
if j > 0 then
   let k = k + 1;
   if k > 1 then
      let ret_str = ret_str||",";
   end if
   let ret_str = ret_str||referencing_t; 
end if
end loop;                       
close back_ref_curs;
free back_ref_curs; 
if k = 0 then
   let ret_str = "No references found!";
end if
return ret_str;
end function;

 

Gary Ben-Israel
IIUG Board

Informix Resources

IIUG Website
Not a member? Become an IIUG member and keep updated on all things Informix. It’s free.

IBM Informix Community
Not a member, join the IBM Informix community and connect with other Informix data experts.

Blogs

Art Kagel – https://informix-myview.blogspot.com/

Mary Schulte – ACTIAN https://www.actian.com/blog/databases/user-friendly-external-smartblobs-using-a-shadow-directory/ 

IBM Informix RFE

IBM Informix RFE – Informix Requests for Enhancements.

Technical Articles

Oninit Group
WAIUG (Washington Area Informix User Group) Tech Tips
Over 10 Years of Informix Webcast Replays
Over 30 Years of Informix Blog Posts

Social Media

YouTube

LinkedIn

X

Facebook

IIUG’s own Art Kagel was recently features on the Tech Sharmit Podcast to talk about his life and involvement with Informix and database systems.
Catch the podcast here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l81pLa7i-J0)

Forums, Groups, Videos, and Magazines

Informix Marketing channel on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/user/informixmarketing?feature=results_main

Closing and Credits

The International Informix Users Group (IIUG) is an organization designed to enhance communications between its worldwide user community and IBM. The IIUG’s membership database exceeds 25,000 entries and enjoys the support and commitment of IBM’s Information Management division. Key programs include local user groups and special interest groups, which we promote and assist from launch through growth.

Sources: IIUG Board of Directors

IBM Corp.

Editors: Gary Ben-Israel, Rhonda Hackenburg

For comments, please send an email to gary@iiug.org or rhonda@iiug.org