Caelum's Blog

On the informix website go to: Support & Downloads -> Downloads -> Trials and Demos

Under I click on Informix Dynamic Server.

Download either IBM Informix Dynamic Server Express Edition or IBM Informix Dynamic Server Developer Edition.

addgroup informix
adduser --ingroup informix informix

Extract the tarball, then as root (with a working X $DISPLAY) run:

./ids_install -gui -javahome none

Choose /home/informix as the installation path.

Do not create the sample database, it will likely fail anyway, we will do that later.

Log in as the informix user:

sudo su - informix

Edit the .bashrc and add the following at the bottom:

export INFORMIXDIR=/home/informix
export INFORMIXSERVER=demo_on
export ONCONFIG=onconfig
export INFORMIXTERM=terminfo

Relogin.

Copy etc/onconfig.std to etc/onconfig and make the following changes:

--- onconfig.std        2009-04-14 23:02:02.000000000 -0400
+++ onconfig    2010-03-26 04:00:41.000000000 -0400
@@ -40,11 +40,11 @@
 ###################################################################
   

 ROOTNAME rootdbs
-ROOTPATH $INFORMIXDIR/tmp/demo_on.rootdbs
+ROOTPATH /home/informix/dbspaces/online_root
 ROOTOFFSET 0
 ROOTSIZE 200000
 MIRROR 0
-MIRRORPATH $INFORMIXDIR/tmp/demo_on.root_mirror
+MIRRORPATH /home/informix/mirrors/root_mirror
 MIRROROFFSET 0
   

 ###################################################################
@@ -123,7 +123,7 @@
 # CONSOLE      - The path of the IDS console message file
 ###################################################################
   

-MSGPATH $INFORMIXDIR/tmp/online.log
+MSGPATH /home/informix/logs/online.log
 CONSOLE $INFORMIXDIR/tmp/online.con
   

 ###################################################################
@@ -198,7 +198,7 @@
 ###################################################################
   

 SERVERNUM 0
-DBSERVERNAME 
+DBSERVERNAME demo_on
 DBSERVERALIASES
   

 ###################################################################
@@ -398,7 +398,7 @@
 #                positive integral multiple of LTAPEBLK.
 ###################################################################
   

-LTAPEDEV /dev/tapedev
+LTAPEDEV /dev/null
 LTAPEBLK 32
 LTAPESIZE 0

Copy etc/sqlhosts.std to etc/sqlhosts and add the following line:

demo_on         onipcshm        localhost           demo_on

Change localhost to the host name of the machine.

Make some directories and files:

cd ~
mkdir dbspaces mirrors logs
cd dbspaces
touch online_root
chmod 660 online_root

Create and start the instance:

oninit -iv

To optionally create a sample database, run dbaccessdemo7 or dbaccessdemo9.

To start the instance, run:

oninit

To stop, run:

onmode -ky

An init script I wrote is here:

http://blog.cachemiss.com/articles/Informix%20Init%20Script.pod

The sample database is not created with logging, this makes it not very useful for use with e.g. DBD::Informix.

To create a database, first log in as informix and run the dbaccess command.

Go to Database -> Create, type in the name you want; then go to Log -> Buffered_log; then Exit -> Create-new-database .

In your .bashrc or whatever, put:

export INFORMIXDIR=/home/informix
export INFORMIXSERVER=demo_on
export INFORMIXTERM=terminfo
export DBD_INFORMIX_DATABASE=stores_demo
export DELIMIDENT=y

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/home/informix/lib:/home/informix/lib/esql
export PATH=$PATH:/home/informix/bin

You can now use the dbaccess command as a shell to run SQL queries. Unfortunately, it's a menu-driven program.

With the environment set as above, just install DBD::Informix as normally from CPAN. Or just perl Makefile.PL; make; sudo make install. The DBD_INFORMIX_DATABASE environment variable should be set to a database that exists, you have stores_demo if you ran dbaccessdemo7 or 9.

Verify that it works:

perl -MDBI -le 'my $dbh = DBI->connect("dbi:Informix:stores_demo", "", ""); print for $dbh->selectrow_array("select today from sysmaster:sysdual")'

Replace stores_demo with the name of the logged database you created earlier.

This information taken from http://database.itags.org/informix/57440/.

Login as the user informix.

Edit etc/onconfig.

Find the DBSERVERALIASES line and change it to:

DBSERVERALIASES hlaghdb_tcp

Edit etc/sqlhosts and add the line:

hlaghdb_tcp    onsoctcp    localhost    informix_tcp

replace localhost with your hostname.

As root, edit /etc/services and add:

informix_tcp   33333/tcp

or whatever port you want to use.

Restart informix:

onmode -ky
oninit

Your DBI DSN becomes:

dbi:Informix:hlaghdb@hlaghdb_tcp

You can use the dbaccess program to run SQL statements against your DBs, but it's some sort of very cumbersome, ancient terminal GUI.

I use the DBI::Shell CPAN module: http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?DBI::Shell.

Unfortunately DBI::Shell does not have history support, so I use rlwrap to add one.

Putting it all together:

alias informix="rlwrap -a -N -t dumb -i -f ~/.informix_dbish_history -H ~/.informix_dbish_history -s 30000 dbish dbi:Informix:hlaghdb@hlaghdb_tcp"

Statements end with ; like in SQL*Plus, use /quit to quit. Readline uses emacs keybindings by default, but you can change this in your ~/.inputrc.