Configuring an SSL ODBC connection to a Db2 Big SQL database (Windows)

If you use the DB2® ODBC driver on your database client to connect to Db2® Big SQL, you can enable SSL on the database client for additional security.

Before you begin

  • Database server: Ensure that the Db2 Big SQL database is SSL enabled. For complete details, see How to configure Db2 Big SQL to support SSL.
  • Database client: Ensure that the DB2 ODBC driver or DB2 Client is installed. For details, see IBM® Support.
  • Ensure that the SSL certificate file from the server (the abc.arm file in C:\temp\tabSSL_new) has been copied to the client.

Procedure

To create and configure a new data source, complete the following steps:

  1. Click Add on the User DSN tab in the Windows ODBC Data Source Administrator interface.
  2. Select IBM DB2 ODBC DRIVER - IBMDBCL1 and click Finish.
  3. Specify a name for the new data source; for example, bigsqlODBC. Click OK. The new data source now appears in the list of user data sources.
  4. Select the new data source and click Configure.
  5. On the Data Source tab in the CLI/ODBC Settings interface, specify a user ID (for example, bigsql) and password for your Db2 Big SQL database.
  6. On the Advanced Settings tab, click Add and then set the following parameter values: Database (BIGSQL), Hostname (IP address or host name of the Db2 Big SQL head node), Port (port number on which the Db2 Big SQL SSL service is running; for example, 51000), and Security (SSL). Click Apply.
  7. To set the SSLServerCertificate parameter, edit your db2cli.ini file and add the following lines, which include a pointer to the path for your certificate file: 
    [bigsqlODBC]
SSLServerCertificate=C:\temp\tabSSL_new\abc.arm
    The location of the db2cli.ini file depends on the DB2 client product that you have installed. To determine the exact location of the db2cli.ini file in your DB2 environment, see db2cli.ini initialization file. If you have the complete DB2 Client product installed, you can edit the db2cli.ini file from the DB2 command line. For example:
    C:\temp\tabSSL_new>db2 update cli cfg for section bigsqlODBC
  using SSLServerCertificate C:\temp\tabSSL_new\abc.arm
  8. Close and then restart the Windows ODBC Data Source Administrator interface to see the configured properties.
  9. To test the connection, click Connect on the Data Source tab in the CLI/ODBC Settings interface.