INFORMIX
Installation Guide for Microsoft Windows Environments
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Configuring Informix Client Products

 This section describes how to complete the following configuration tasks:

You use Setnet32 to perform most configuration tasks, including setting most environment variables, and server and host information.

You may have component-specific environment variables to set. See individual product documentation for details.

About Setnet32

With the Setnet32 utility, you can set or modify environment variables and network parameters that Informix products use at runtime. The variables and network parameters are stored in the Windows system registry and are valid for every Informix client product you install on the same computer.

The Setnet32 utility has the following four tabbed pages:

In addition, the following buttons are at the bottom of the Setnet32 window.

Setnet32 Button Purpose

OK

Updates the Registry with the information that you have entered and then exits Setnet32.

Cancel

Cancels all work that you have not already saved with the Apply button and exits from Setnet32.

Apply

Updates the Registry with the information that you have entered, but does not exit.

Help

Invokes Setnet32 on-line help.

? (What's This)

Provides context-sensitive help. Click the What's This? button, near the right side of the title bar, and then click any displayed control to get context-sensitive help about that control. You can also click the right mouse button over a control to access context-sensitive help.

Press any key to dismiss the help window.

Setting Environment Information

To obtain information about Informix products and the environment in which they run, client products need to access environment variables. Some of these environment variables are required, and others are optional.

For more information on environment variables, see "Environment Variables" and the Informix Guide to SQL: Reference included with your Informix database server documentation.

The INFORMIX-GLS Programmer's Manual describes the environment variables that you need for locales.

Set your environment variables with the Environment tab of the Setnet32 utility (Figure 4).

Figure 4
Setnet32
Environment Tabbed Page

The Environment tabbed page contains the following elements:

    From this list, you can select an environment variable so that you can edit its value with the controls in the Edit Environment Variable group.

    Once you select an environment variable in the Informix Client/Server Environment list box, the environment variable name appears above the Variable Name text box. You can enter a new value in the Variable Name text box, edit the existing value, or select a value by clicking the down arrow. Click Clear to assign a null value to that environment variable. Once you have made your change, click Set to save that value.

Setting Server Information

 A client application connects to an Informix server running on a computer that can be reached through the network. To establish the connection, you use Setnet32 to specify the location of the Informix server on the network and the network communications protocol to use. You must obtain this information from the administrator of the server you want to use.

Set database server parameters with the Server Information tabbed page (Figure 5).

Figure 5
Setnet32
Server Information Tabbed Page

The Server Information tabbed page contains the following elements:

    From this list, you can select an existing Informix database server, or you can type the name of a new database server.

    From this list, you can select the host computer with the database server you want to use, or you can type the name of a new host computer.

    From this list, select a network protocol from a list of protocols provided by the installation procedure.

    In this text box, specify the service name associated with a specific database server. You can type either the service name or the port number assigned to the database server on the host computer. You must obtain this information from the database server administrator.

Important: If you enter a service name, it must be defined on the client computer in the system32\drivers\etc\services file in the Windows installation directory. The service definition must match the definition on the database server host computer.

    This button sets the INFORMIXSERVER environment variable to the name of the current server to make it the default database server.

    This button deletes the definition of a database server from the Windows registry. It also deletes the host name, protocol name, and service name associated with that database server.

Setting Host Information

A client application can make connections only to a host computer that it can access through the network. You describe a connection to a host computer with host parameters.

For more information on host parameters, see the connectivity chapter in the Administrator's Guide for your database server.

You set host parameters for a specific host with the Host Information tabbed page of the Setnet32 utility (Figure 6).

Figure 6
Setnet32
Host Information
Tabbed Page

The Host Information tabbed page contains the following elements:

    This list displays host computers previously defined in the current Windows registry. From this list, you can select the name of a host computer with which to establish a network connection, or you can edit or retype a name on the list to define a new host name.

    This text box displays the user name for an account on the currently selected host computer. This text box accepts a value with a maximum length of 18 characters. The value is visible and case sensitive.

    From this list, you can select one of the following password options:

      This option specifies that your application is to prompt the user for a password.

      This option specifies that the user account has no password. When the application opens a new database, that application does not send a password to the database server. If the host computer of the database server requires a password, the connection fails and an error results.

      This option specifies that the user account has a password that matches the encrypted value that the Password text box displays. When the application opens a new database, the database server compares the password that the user enters with the login password for the host computer of the database server. The two passwords must be identical for the database server to grant access to the database. If the passwords are not identical, the user cannot connect to that database server across a network.

    This text box, which the Password option activates, displays the encrypted value of the account password. This encrypted value corresponds to the password that is in the Windows registry. When this text box is enabled, it accepts a password value with a maximum length of 18 characters. The value is invisible, case sensitive, and cannot contain any spaces.

    This button deletes the name of the currently selected host computer from the Windows registry, as well as the user name, password option, and password associated with that host computer.

Creating a Windows NT Service

Windows NT services do not search for configuration information in the Windows registry hive where Setup and Setnet32 store client products environment variables. To enable a client application to run as a Windows NT service, you must copy the values from the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\
Software\Informix registry hive of the informix user to the HKEY_USERS\
.Default\Software registry hive. You can perform this manually or by using the regcopy utility.

To run the regcopy utility, log in as user informix or as another user that has administrator privileges and can run Informix software. The regcopy utility is in the bin subdirectory of the Informix installation directory. Once you are done, you can check the progress by reviewing the regcopy.log file located in the %TEMP% directory.



Installation Guide for Microsoft Windows Environments, version 2.0
Copyright © 1998, Informix Software, Inc. All rights reserved.