Solved and How-To

Hello All, Thank you so much for your help. My Informix on Linux is now alive and happy thanks to MANY e-mails and much support I received from all of you here. I decided to create a brief 'How I Did It' kind of document and post it here for people in my position. I've only been using Linux for a year and getting something as complex as a RDBMS set up on it and useable for our purposes was quite a challenge for me, but I did it. I hope this document isn't too long. I figured since it was just plain text it would be ok. Sorry in advance if it was not. Looking forward to getting to know more about this great DB as I come to use it. Regards, Effrem Norwood Managing Partner Neoa Resources, Ltd. t. 937.767.9417 x201 This configuration performed on an Intel PII350 running Redhat Linux 6.1 using Informix 7.30.UC7-2 for Linux. I have no idea if it is secure or correct, but it worked for me. Use at your own risk! Please send comments or suggestions to informixATneoaDOTcom. If you can improve on this document, please do! 1. Don't use or enable MD5 or Shadow passwords on Linux. If you did, you might try to use the 'pwunconv' command to disable the encryption which makes a mess later on. 2. Before you install Informix, you need to create a user named Informix and a group of the same name. To do this, type 'useradd Informix' and then 'passwd Informix' to change that users password. Next type 'groupadd Informix' to create the group. 3. Next, you have to create a home for Informix and set up paths to it so the OS knows where to find it. I created a directory at the '/' level of my machine called Informix. To do this for yourself, type 'cd /' and then 'mkdir Informix' to create the directory. 4. Next, I set up the paths by typing the following: 'export INFORMIXDIR=/Informix' and then 'export PATH=$PATH:$INFORMIXDIR/bin' You can add these commands to your login script and save lots of your time. Otherwise you must type them in each time you log in to the terminal. 5. My Informix came to me as two RPM files. I was glad because the idea of using make or some other tool to compile my own program is still one I need help with. So, I just typed 'rpm -i informix.rpm' and then 'rpm -i informix2.rpm' and I was done. During this process I was asked for my serial number and password. 6. After this process, there were lots of entries in my /Informix directory. Two very important files are located in /Informix/etc named 'onconfig' and 'sqlhosts'. They are files you will need to edit to make Informix work. 7. First, edit sqlhosts. In my case, I am using Informix as the my backend database which must connect to Windows NT 4.0. So, in my sqlhosts file, I have just a single tab delimited line which reads 'anisoptera <tab> onsoctcp <tab> 192.168.1.137 <tab> infserv'. Save and exit. 8. Next, edit the onconfig file. In the first few lines is a line which begins ROOTPATH. Mine looked like this: ROOTPATH /dev/online_root This is the path to an area of disk space that Informix will use as a database device upon which it creates your database. This of course means that you will have to create this device, which will be described shortly. For now, just make note of where it is pointing to. As you continue down the onconfig file, you will come to a line which begins DBSERVERNAME. Right next to DBSERVERNAME, on the same line, insert your server name. This must be the SAME name as in your sqlhosts file. In my case this was anisoptera, so it looks like this: DBSERVERNAME anisopteraNow save and exit. 9. Now you need to create that online_root device. Since mine pointed to /dev, I typed 'cd /dev' to switch to that directory. To make the device, you will need to reference something called null. Mine was located in the same directory, so to create my device I typed 'cat /null >online_root' but, you may have to do something else if your null is in a different spot. If you were in /mydir and null was in /dev/files, you would have to type 'cat /dev/files/null>online_root' to create the file while you were IN /mydir. 10. You now have to change the acl or "permissions" on this file. Type 'chmod 660 online_root' to set the appropriate "permissions". 11. Now you have to change the owner and group of this new device to the Informix user and group you created earlier. Type 'chown Informix online_root' to change owners and then 'chgrp Informix online_root' to change groups. 12. You must create some service entries next to add appropriate ports to your computer for Informix. Change to '/etc' and edit your services file. Add the following lines: 'infserv <tab> 1536/tcp <tab> #Informix Listener' Notice that this is the service you defined in you sqlhosts file. The very last entry on that one line. Next type: 'anisoptera <tab> 8000/tcp <tab> #Informix' and finally: 'anisoptera <tab> 8000/udp <tab> #Informix' Now save and exit. Once this is done, I think you need to restart you inet service, but I'm not sure. I did by typing 'cd /' and then '/etc/rc.d/init.d/inet restart'. 13. Now I typed 'export INFORMIXSERVER=anisoptera' to let the OS know which server I wanted to talk to. 14. I now typed 'oninit -ivy' which much to my astonishment actually brought the thing to life. It worked away for a few seconds and was then ready. FYI, you only need to used the -ivy extension to oninit ONCE to initialize the device you created in setp 9. 15. I then typed dbaccessdemo7 and Informix created a test database for me called Stores7. 16. I then went over to NT, and added the lines in step 12 to NT's services file, which is in the WINNT directory somewhere. 17. The Informix SDK, which I found at http://www.intraware.com had an NT ODBC driver in it for Informix. It's called INFORMIX 3.30 32 BIT and is an Informix driver. Once you choose to use it, it asks for the following information which I have filled in with the appropriate responses based on this example: Server Name: anisoptera Host Name: 192.168.1.137 Service: infserv Protocol: onsoctcp Database Name: Stores7 User ID: Informix Password: ********* When I hit the test connect button, it was successful, and that was it. Now there's a lot more to learn, but at least it's working. A HUGE THANK YOU to everyone on comp.databases.informix who helped me to get this going and prompted me to write this.