Administrating and Developing with Informix

A set of instructions for installing OpenAdmin Tool for IDS in a Linux XAMPP environment written by Erika von Bargen was added to the IDS Experts blog over the weekend. Now anyone wishing to install OAT with XAMPP can refer to:

• OpenAdmin Tool XAMPP Installation on Linux
• Installing IDSAdmin in a Windows XAMPP environment

What about other UNIX platforms? OAT should run on any platform that supports Apache and PHP. I know people have it working on Solaris. Has anyone tried getting it working on other platforms?[Read More]

Until fairly recently, a new Intel/AMD machine in the lab meant choosing which operating system to install on it. Nowadays semi-ubiquitous virtualization and free offerings from the likes of Vmware and Microsoft make it easier to run multiple concurrent operating systems.

For a personal computer, I can't be bothered with fully fledged virtualization software; if I want to run Windows and Linux concurrently Cooperative Linux fits the bill. CoLinux is a Linux daemon that runs natively on Windows. I recently gave the latest version a test drive. The installation and setup process was pretty simple..

• Download the latest coLinux build.
  While you're there download a 2.6.x based Root FileSystem image to c:\colinux and unzip it. I tested with the Fedora and Debian images and they both worked fine.
• Download and install WinPcap - required to integrate networking with Windows if you choose bridged networking.
• Run the CoLinux installer - Choose WinPcap networking support and install in c:\colinux.
• Copy c:\colinux\default.colinux.xml to config.xml and edit:
  
  
  • Set block_device index="0" to the Root FS image file
  • Enable the "experimental" cofs_device if you require access to the Windows filesystem
  • Set memory size (I chose 256 which is probably overkill)
  • Set the network to type="bridged" name="Local Area Connection" - to match the name of my network adapter as given by ipconfig.
  
  
• Run colinux-daemon -c config.xml
• The Linux daemon should boot and the Cooperative Linux console pop up. Login as root (Fedora: no password, Debian password is root)
• Enable access to the Windows C: drive if required:

    mkdir /mnt/cdrive  mount cofs0 /mnt/cdrive -t cofs -o ro  ln -s /mnt/cdrive /cdrive

  Follow up with an /etc/fstab entry:

  cofs0:/   /mnt/cdrive   cofs user,noexec,dmask=0777,fmask=0666 0 0

At this point CoLinux is pretty much configured. The Wiki has more detailed setup and configuration instructions (such as enabling swap space etc) and a FAQ. One thing lacking from the Debian image I tried was vi, but fixing that was as simple as running:

apt-get updateapt-get install vim

This also had the benefit of updating glibc as a pre-requisite. On Fedora it's a good idea to run yum update to get the basic software up to date.



Next I tried installing Informix Dynamic Server - ok probably not a supported configuration but it works. So far only installed IDS version 7.31.UD10 as it was the smallest tar file that was lying around. The fedora 2GB filesystem image had 1GB of free space and additional filesystems can be added so plenty of room for any version plus dbspaces (not looked into to whether there's a way to implement raw devices for dbspaces).

IDS installation was standard, created an informix user and group with:

groupadd informixuseradd informix -d /informix -g informix -m

Copied the IDS tar file to c:\temp, and then untarred it directly into the chosen INFORMIXDIR with:

tar xvf /cdrive/temp/ids.7.31.UD10.LINUX-I32.tartar xvf IDS.tar

The rest of the installation was identical to installing IDS on any Linux machine - set INFORMIXDIR, run installserver as root, create an environment file to set INFORMIXDIR, INFORMIXSERVER, PATH, ONCONFIG, create and edit an onconfig file, add an sqlhosts file onipcshm entry, create an empty root dbpsace file. Here's the oninit -ivy output...



It's good to have Linux on Windows this accessible, and there are plenty of possibilities for making it easier.. such as running Samba to access the Linux filesystem from Windows, setting up sshd, sftpd. Should make for some interesting configuration tests, like running Enterprise Replication between IDS on Windows and IDS on Linux on the same machine..



Update 9/5/06: Tried installing the latest IDS 10.0 (10.00.UC5W3) on CoLinux with the Fedora 2.6 filesystem - the only gotcha is that IDS 10.0 has a dependancy on libstdc++.so.5 and the gcc version I'd installed had a later version, so to get IDS working I borrowed libstdc++.so.5 from another Linux machine - after that IDS installed and ran fine (and fast). This IIUG post by Andreas Breitfeld tells you what you need to know to get IDS 10+ working with Debian.[Read More]

Since I last wrote about CoLinux it has become a useful tool within our team. In addition to the advantages of having a concurrent virtualized Linux server running natively on a machine that would otherwise be limited to Windows, a key factor for me is that the Linuxfilesystem is a simple Windows file. After configuring an instance (say installing IDS, CSDK, gcc, g++, make, Apache, php, Informix_PDO, Zend etc...) the filesystem can be saved as a zip file and shared with others.

If I do something reckless (like overwrite an OS threading library with a bad version) and trash the system, as long as I saved the filesystem prior to the misdeed, recovery is as simple as copying a file and restarting coLinux.

Setting up X-Windows is straightforward, the easiest way seems to be to install and start the CygWin X-Server on Windows and use the xhost command to allow access to the desktop. Set the DISPLAY environment variable in Linux to point to the Windows IP address, and x applications (once they're installed) should then display on Windows.

Networking issues - Basic network setup is straightforward and covered in the Wiki. This ONLamp blog post also has some useful suggestions for unplugged machines. I have yet to find a good wireless network solution though.
Update: This Wiki entry suggests specifying the MAC address of your wireless card to get wireless working with WinPCAP.

Typical usage scenario

Problem: We have a conference demo which uses the LAIP stack (Linux, Apache, Informix, PHP) - and the conference organizers only provide a Windows PC and a demo setup window of a few hours.
Solution: Set up the demo in CoLinux and when it's ready zip the filesystem and take it along on a flash drive. Set-up time is as long as it takes to install CoLinux and WinPCap, unzip the filesystem and start CoLinux on the demo machine. Alternative options would be to convert the demo to Windows (WAIP) and install and configure all the software, or maybe create a customized Linux live cd, but the CoLinux solution seems the simplest, and the same zipped archive can be used by anyone wishing to give this demo in the future.

As with other virtualization solutions it is also possible to run multiple CoLinux instances on one machine capable of communicating with each other, which would make for a useful self-contained high availability (e.g. HDR or ER) test/demo between two virtual servers.[Read More]

There have been a few new Informix developworks and support articles in the last month or three. Here are my favourites:

Web development

• A step-by-step how-to guide to install, configure, and test a Linux, Apache, Informix, and PHP server
  - a concise and detailed getting started guide to LAIP (or is that PAIL)
• Put yourself on the map with Google Maps API, DB2/Informix, and PHP on Linux
  - add geospatial bells and whistles to your plain looking application
• RedBook: Developing PHP Applications for IBM Data Servers
  - has a chapter on Informix
• Executing a stored procedure through a WebServer
  - I'm not a fan of ASP but this technote looks useful..

Other application development

• How to enable JDBC tracing starting with JDBC version 3.0.x
  - useful support article for troubleshooting
• Writing XA applications for IDS
• DB-Access Utility for Windows to allow for connectivity to IDS version 9.40.xC2
  - about the standalone dbaccess tool

IDS engine/migration

• Migrating to IBM database servers gets easier with the latest MTK release
  - New features in the IBM Migration Toolkit V1.4
• Informix Dynamic Server and Linux -- Up and running
  - A cookbook for installing Linux and IDS

[Read More]

If you've looked at Informix Zone you may have seen it has the facility for anyone to create an account, start an Informix blog and post articles. Christian Winterhager has done just that... his first article: Raw Devices on Suse Linux is an excellent introduction to setting up raw devices on Linux, and includes a Python program for automating dbspace and raw device creation.

I like the concept of a commons where Informix users can contribute articles, opinions, etc.. My suggestion would be to consider opening it up so anyone with an account can start a blog without the approval step and see what happens.

Update 11/13/06: See Eric's response in the comments. Thanks Eric.[Read More]