Configuring Informix and creating a database

Having installed Informix (see InstallingInformixSpatial), we need to configure it. These notes are taken from a visit of John Pickford of IBM, 16th June 2004.

Throughout this, assume that you must be logged in as the informix user unless otherwise stated (for most steps, you could be logged on as any user that is a member of the informix group).

Setting up the environment

The following environment variables need to be set (this is probably best done in the logon script for the informix user):

setenv INFORMIXDIR /opt/informix  # root of the Informix installation
setenv INFORMIXSERVER reading     # name of the online system
setenv ONCONFIG onconfig.reading  # name of the configuration file (located in $INFORMIXDIR/etc)

Note that we haven't set up the online system or the config file yet - we'll do that now.

Edit sqlhosts file

We need to add a new online system to the sqlhosts file, corresponding to the $INFORMIXSERVER environment variable. To do this add a line similar to:

reading   onsoctcp  192.171.166.118   reading_tcp

This means "set up an online instance called reading, on the machine with IP 192.171.166.118, which we shall connect to using TCP sockets. The port number is set up in /etc/services under the entry =reading_tcp=". (note that you could use the name of the machine instead of its IP address.

Add an entry to /etc/services (you'll probably need to log on as root to do this) like this:

reading_tcp  1527/tcp                # IBM Informix reading server

This specifies that the instance will listen on port 1527 (could use any port).

Edit onconfig.reading file

You will probably need to create this file, which should reside in $INFORMIXDIR/etc. There are a large number of options here, so the easiest way to begin is by copying the onconfig.std file. The copy currently in use here is linked here. Key parts of this file include:

1. The ROOTNAME and ROOTPATH values give the name and location of the root dbspace. For this application, we were happy for this to be simply a file in the filesystem (it could be a raw device). You will need to create this file (call it rootdbs) as an empty file in $INFORMIXDIR/dbspaces (perhaps using touch), chown-ing it to informix/informix, chmod-ing the directory $INFORMIXDIR/dbspaces to 755 and chmod-ing the rootdbs file to 660.
2. Similarly, you will have to create the SBSPACENAME file (called sbspace in this example) to hold the dbspace for SmartBlobs . You'll then have to run onspaces -c -S sbspace -p /opt/informix/dbspaces/sbspace -o 0 -s 100000 to prepare the space, then ontape -s -L 0 to pretend to back the system up (in reality the tape device is /dev/null in this system, as specified in onconfig.reading, so nothing will happen but it keeps the system happy).

Initialise the database

We should now be ready to initialise the database. Do this by running:

oninit -iy

WARNING: running this completely wipes all databases and tables. Use the finderr command to identify any error messages that might come up.

Related Manuals

For more information on how to install the database server, set environment variables, and put the database server online, see the manuals for your database server listed below:

Task or Feature	Topic	Manual
Installing the database server		Installation Guide
Setting environment variables	.cshrc or .login	Installation Guide, IBM Informix Guide to SQL:Reference
Setting UNIX permissions	chmod	UNIX Documentation
Putting database server online	oninit	Administrator's Guide
Creating database spaces	onspaces	IBM Informix Guide to SQL:Reference

These manuals are available online at http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/informix/pubs/library/ids_94.html

-- JonBlower - 16 Jun 2004