Installation owner
The owner of the Informix® database server depends on the privileges of the user who runs the installation application. The owner of the server creates and controls all other user accounts that can access the database server.
The standard way to install the database server is as a superuser with administrative privileges. The installation application creates the user informix. User informix is a user account with main authority over the database server instance.
UNIX, Linux, Mac OS X: If you install the database server as a non-administrative, or non-root, user, you become the owner of the database server. In this case, user informix in not created. You cannot change the owner of the database server. You cannot convert or upgrade a non-root installation to a standard, root-based installation, and vice versa.
User informix
User informix is required for root-based installations because it has the unique user identifier (UID) to manage and maintain database server instances and databases on the host server.
UNIX, Linux, Mac OS X: User informix is a member of the group informix. On UNIX or Linux®, if group informix exists on your system, but user informix does not exist, you must create user informix before you install the database server.
Windows: User informix is a member of the Informix-Admin group and the Administrators group. In most cases, the installation application automatically creates the user informix and the group informix or Informix-Admin group. User informix can log on as a service and act as part of the operating system.
If you are installing the database server for the first time on your system, the installation application prompts you to provide a password for the informix user. If user informix exists on your system, the installation application prompts you to confirm the password.
The password for the informix user account must be protected. Let only trusted database and security administrators log in as user informix.
UNIX, Linux, Mac OS X: Non-administrative, or non-root owner
If you run the installation application as a non-administrative user, that user is the non-root owner of the installation and has database server administrator (DBSA) privileges over the database server.
The installation directory must be on a local file system if you plan to use onipcstr connections because you cannot create a named domain socket on a non-local file system.
A non-root installation is appropriate in the following situations:
- You plan to embed the database server in an application that is to be deployed on other computers where you either do not want a root-level installation or you want non-administrative users to install the application.
- You do not have or do not want to use root user credentials for the Informix database server installation.
- You are developing a virtual appliance.
If you install the database server without root privileges, you cannot use the following features and tools:
- Enterprise Replication for servers that have different owners
- High-availability clusters
- Auditing through role separation
- The ON-Bar utility for backing up and restoring data
- The onperf utility to monitor database server performance
Encrypted connections and column-level encryption (CLE) are supported only if the required security-layer plug-in is installed separately on the host computer. You can run the IBM® Global Security Kit (GSKit) installation application in the INFORMIXDIR/gskit directory to set up the security layer.