Informix Machine Notes

                      =================================
                            MACHINE SPECIFIC NOTES
                                    FOR
                 IBM Informix Database Server 11.70.FC7 PRODUCT RELEASE
                             ON SUN SOLARIS 64bit
                               DATE: 27 Nov 2012
                      =================================

OS Information : Built on Solaris 10 release update 6.
                 Certified on Solaris 11.

System Requirements
===================

1.  This product was built on Solaris 10 using the following compilers
    from Oracle Solaris Studio 12:

       Sun C 5.9 SunOS_sparc Patch 124867-09 2008/11/25
       Sun C++ 5.9 SunOS_sparc Patch 124863-11 2009/03/10

2.  IBM Informix Database Server is supported to work with and without Zones
    on Solaris 10. Read the following document for more information:

    ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/software/data/informix/ids/IDS-SunSPARC-reqs.pdf

3.  The UNIX graphical tools provided with this release require 64-bit 
    X Windows System X11R6 and Motif 2.1 or later runtime libraries.

    If these tools cannot find the location of the X and Motif shared
    libraries, set the environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH to include 
    these locations: /usr/openwin/lib/sparcv9 and /usr/dt/lib/sparcv9.

4.  The High Performance Loader utilities, onpload and ipload, require a
    minimum of 35 MB of memory and 70 MB of swap space in order to run.

5.  IBM Informix Database Server uses the libraries and utilities provided by
    the IBM Global Security Kit (GSKit) for data encryption and Secure Sockets
    Layer (SSL) communication. The GSKit is bundled with the server and will
    be installed on your machine as part of the server installation process.
    Here are more details on the GSKit:

       a. The GSKit is also bundled with other IBM products and might
          already be present on your machine. If GSKit8 is not
          installed, Informix server will install GSKit in /opt/ibm/gsk8_64
          directory on your machine.

       b. The GSKit installation directory must have 35 MB of free disk space.

Check the following web site for the latest Solaris system requirements 
for IBM Informix Database Server:

    http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=630&uid=swg27013343


System Configuration
====================

1.  Kernel Parameters

    a) On Solaris 10, all System V IPC facilities are either automatically 
       configured or can be controlled by resource controls. 

       The resource controls have the following default values on Solaris 10:

           process.max-sem-nsems    512
           project.max-sem-ids      128
           project.max-shm-memory   1/4 of physical memory 
           project.max-shm-ids      128   

       Check project.max-shm-memory on your system, IBM recommend the value
       of 4398046511104 for the IBM Informix Database Server.

       On systems that have zones enabled, zone-wide resource controls are 
       specified in the zone configuration.

       Refer to the rctladm(1m) man page for more information about 
       available resource controls. 

       Examples:

       1. To display the current value of project.max-shm-memory set to the 
          project and system wide, where Informix server is running under the 
          default project, run this command:

          # prctl -n project.max-shm-memory -i project default

       2. To display the values of all the resource controls for a specific 
          Informix server process, run this command: 
         
          # prctl <oninit pid>  

       3. To set the value of project.max-shm-memory for the project default 
          to 4 TB without restarting the system, run this command:

          # prctl -n project.max-shm-memory -r -v 4tb -i project default

       4. To perform the same action as in example 3, but instead use 
          the projmod command to modify the attribute value for 
          project.max-shm-memory in /etc/project the local source of
          project information file, run this command:

          # projmod -a -K 'project.max-shm-memory=(priv,4TB,deny)' default

    b) Informix server Failure with a Large Intimate Shared Memory Page Size

       On certain hardware configurations, Solaris 10 can use very large 
       memory pages for Solaris Intimate Shared Memory (ISM): 32 MB or 
       256 MB instead of the previous limit of 4 MB. Informix server uses 
       Solaris ISM for shared memory segments that are forced to be 
       memory-resident by the RESIDENT configuration parameter, however 
       Informix server might experience problems if 32 MB or 256 MB pages 
       are used by Solaris (APAR 36804462).

       If you receive a message that contiguous shared memory segment
       allocation failed and the value of the SHMBASE configuration
       parameter is the same as its value in onconfig.std, then Informix server
       might fail unexpectedly. To prevent this problem, set the Solaris 10 
       operating system mmu_ism_pagesize configuration parameter to limit
       the memory pages to 4 MB for ISM. To set this parameter, edit the
       /etc/system file and add the following line:

         set mmu_ism_pagesize = 4194304

       Then restart the Solaris computer.

2.  Location of Shared Memory

    The ONCONFIG variable SHMBASE should be set to the following:

        SHMBASE 0x10A000000L

3.  Environment Variables

    It is recommended that the environment variable INFORMIXSTACKSIZE be
    set to 128 (the default is 64) if the application involves operations
    which would require the IBM Informix Database Server to perform recursive
    database tasks (for example, cascading deletes).


Feature Notes  (alphabetized by feature)
=============

1.  High Performance Loader

    User-defined conversion routines for the High Performance Loader must be
    provided in a dynamic, shared library called ipldd11a.so. This shared 
    library is installed in the $INFORMIXDIR/lib directory. You can set the 
    location of this file with the HPL_DYNAMIC_LIB_PATH configuration 
    parameter in the file pointed to by PLCONFIG environment variable. For 
    more details see the "High-Performance Loader User's Guide".

    To create a 64-bit shared library, the flags "-m64" can be used
    to convey to the compiler that a 64-bit object is to be generated.

    Onpload will use shared memory during its execution. It will allocate
    memory beyond the address for the server, leaving room for server shared
    memory expansion.

2.  IPv6 Support 

    IBM Informix Server supports Internet Protocol Version 6 (128 Bit Internet
    Addresses) as well as IPv4 (32 Bit Addresses).
   
    In order for the machine name specified in the SQLHOSTS file to resolve to 
    the correct IP address, the name services files on the operating system 
    should be correctly configured. If the machine has IPv6 address configured
    and the listener thread is bound to an IPv6 address, then the name
    resolution files /etc/nsswitch.conf should be configured to fetch IPv6
    addresss. Also use the appropriate /etc/hosts setting if local machine 
    settings are used.
    
    For compatibility with older IBM Informix client and server products, 
    assign the same hostname with both an IPv4 address and an IPv6 address. 
    If the listener needs to be bound to an IPv4 address and the name services 
    resolve the name in the order of the IPv6 address followed by IPv4 address,
    then an explicit IPv4 address needs to be put in nodename field of SQLHOSTS
    file.  Client applications should also use the same setting.

3.  J/Foundation (Java in the Server)
 
    J/Foundation supports the JRE 6.0 release from Oracle, which uses the 
    Solaris native threads based Java Virtual Machine.

    The JRE 6.0 is available under $INFORMIXDIR/extend/krakatoa/jre and
    should be used with J/Foundation.

    To use this JRE, set the value of the ONCONFIG variable JVPJAVAHOME as
    follows:

        JVPJAVAHOME    <jvphome>/jre
            where <jvphome> is $INFORMIXDIR/extend/krakatoa

    For IBM Informix Database Server ONCONFIG settings for J/Foundation,
    refer to "onconfig.std" in $INFORMIXDIR/etc.
 
4.  Large Memory Addressability (LMA)

    IBM Informix LMA provides the ability to support system configurations
    with greater than 4GB of RAM. Most UNIX systems are limited to 4GB of
    RAM based on the memory addressing limitations of 32-bit architectures.

    The values for the following ONCONFIG parameters are increased from
    32-bit to 64-bit platform by LMA support:

        - The maximum number of buffers in BUFFERPOOL is 536870912.

        - The maximum of LRU queues for lrus field in BUFFERPOOL is 512.

        - The DS_TOTAL_MEMORY, which is the total memory available for
          decision support memory, is only limited by the amount of virtual
          memory available (2^40)/2 MB. The sort memory comes out of the 
          DS_TOTAL_MEMORY memory and hence there is no explicit limit on the 
          amount of sort memory.

        - The read ahead parameter RA_PAGES is only limited by the number of
          buffers and therefore can be any value less than 536870912. The 
          "chunk" write algorithm is not dependent on the amount of buffers or
          shared memory and can write as many pages in a single I/O as possible.

        - The maximum size of any shared memory segment is 4398046511104 bytes.

        - The value for SHMADD is 4294967296 kilobytes.

    Refer to IBM Informix Administrator's Reference manual for the
    information about the related configuration parameters setting.

5.  MQ Messaging Database Extension

    The MQ extension provides mechanism for data exchange between 
    Informix server and queues managed by Websphere MQ.

    Note: MQ extension expects Websphere MQ libraries installed in 
          the default location /opt/mqm. Otherwise create symbolic links 
          from /opt/mqm/lib64 to the 64-bit Websphere MQ libraries.

6.  Network Protocols

    The following protocol(s)/interface(s) are supported on this platform:
 
      TLI using TCP/IP
      SOCKETS using TCP/IP
      IPC using stream pipe

      To use TLI with TCP/IP:

          a. NETTYPE in the ONCONFIG file and the nettype field in the
             sqlhosts file entry must contain "ontlitcp".

          b. To enable an IBM Data Server Client to connect to Informix 
             Database Server, NETTYPE in the ONCONFIG file and the value data 
             of protocol in the sqlhosts file entry must contain "drtlitcp"

      To use SOCKETS with TCP/IP:

          a. NETTYPE in the ONCONFIG file and the nettype field in the
              sqlhosts file entry must contain "onsoctcp".

          b. To enable an IBM Data Server Client to connect to Informix 
             Database Server, NETTYPE in the ONCONFIG file and the value data 
             of protocol in the sqlhosts file entry must contain "drsoctcp"

      If a CLI or JCC client wants to connect to Informix server via DRDA 
      while supporting SQLI connections you could add a DBSERVERALIASES entry 
      to ONCONFIG which corresponds to the sqlhosts file.

      When using either TLI or SOCKETS, set the "connections" field in 
      the ONCONFIG NETTYPE parameter and the kernel driver ndd parameter 
      "tcp_conn_req_max_q" to the maximum number of expected concurrent 
      connections.
 
      If the "tcp_conn_req_max_q" is set too low, you will see a client 
      error with sqlcode = -908 and isamcode = 13. If the NETTYPE 
      "connections" field is set too low, you will see a server 
      listener-thread error with err = -25571.

      To use IPC (interprocess communication) with stream pipe:

          a. NETTYPE in the ONCONFIG file and the nettype field in the
             sqlhosts file entry must contain "onipcstr".
 
    Remote 32-bit applications and tools (example: ESQL/C, 4GL, ISQL) can
    only connect to the IBM Informix Database Server using the TCP/IP
    protocol.

    Local 32-bit applications and tools can connect to the 64-bit server using
    either the TCP/IP or the IPC stream pipe protocols.

    Fast poll is supported with all TCP/IP and stream pipe interfaces.
    FASTPOLL in the ONCONFIG file can be set to 0 to disable the fast poll. 
    By default the fast poll is enabled (value is 1).

    The protocol used for supporting MaxConnect on this platform is
    "ontliimc".

7.  OnLine Backup and Restore (ON-Bar)

    Some of the functions invoked by ON-Bar are in a shared library supplied
    by third party storage management vendors. For ON-Bar to access these
    functions, the library must be installed in one of the three ways
    noted below.
 
        a. Rename the library to $INFORMIXDIR/lib/ibsad001.so.
 
        b. Create $INFORMIXDIR/lib/ibsad001.so as a symbolic link to the 
           library.
 
        c. Set the BAR_BSALIB_PATH parameter in $INFORMIXDIR/etc/$ONCONFIG
           to the full pathname of the library.

    This shared library must be compiled in 64-bit mode. 
 
    Informix Interface for Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) is supported on this 
    platform. The interface is built with TSM API version 5.3.2.

8.  OnSNMP

    The SNMP agent for OnSNMP is based on SNMP Research (SNMPR).

9.  Optical

    The name of the IBM Informix shared library for Optical on Solaris is
    iosm11a.so.  This library must be located in $INFORMIXDIR/lib (or must
    have a link provided in $INFORMIXDIR/lib).

    Refer to the "Optical Subsystem Guide" for more information about 
    enabling optical functionality.

10. Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM)

    PAM functionality is supported on Solaris operating system. The PAM is 
    dependent on the libpam.so library supplied by the Operating System vendor.

    Use of PAM can be enabled or disabled by the system administrator. By 
    default, IBM Informix server will use the traditional authentication 
    mechanism in order to avoid widespread changes required by the users.

    The PAM service identifies the PAM module. This PAM module typically
    resides in /usr/lib/security and its parameters are listed in
    /etc/pam.conf.

11. Secure Sockets Layer

    IBM Informix Database Server uses the libraries and utilities provided by
    the IBM Global Security Kit (GSKit) for Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
    communication.

       a. Before uninstalling GSKit, verify that it is not needed on your
          system. It is possible that software other than Informix Database
          Server requires GSKit.  Uninstalling entails removing the GSKit
          packages with the pkgrm command-line tool

          As root user run the pkgrm command to remove each package as 
          needed. For example, the following command removes the GSKit 
          SSL and GSKit Crypt packages:
          pkgrm gsk8ssl32 gsk8cry32 

       b. If you want to restore Secure Sockets Layer capability after you 
          have uninstalled GSKit, see the readme file in $INFORMIXDIR/gskit 
          for how to install GSKit.

12. Simple Password Communications Support Module

    The name of the IBM Informix shared library for Simple Password CSM on
    Solaris is libixspw.so.


Features not supported
======================


Migrating to this 64-bit Version
================================

1.  To migrate to this 64-bit version from previous versions of the server
    (64-bit as well as 32-bit), refer to the migration process described in
    the IBM Informix Migration Guide, Version 11.70.

    To revert from this 64-bit version to all previous 64-bit versions refer 
    to the IBM Informix Migration Guide, Version 11.70.

    To revert from 64-bit 11.70 (this server) to 32-bit 11.50, 11.10, 10.00, 
    or 9.40:
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    a. Disconnect all users from this server. The 64-bit server should be
       in online mode.

    b. Run the following command as user informix or DBA:
            $INFORMIXDIR/etc/conv/update.sh -32
 
    c. Revert to 9.40, 10.00, 11.10 or 11.50 32-bit by following the steps 
       described in the IBM Informix Migration Guide, Version 11.70, in the 
       section "Reverting from Informix Version 11.70".

2.  All UDRs and Database Extensions that are built in 32-bit mode must be 
    re-compiled in 64-bit mode to work with the 64-bit server. If you have 
    any UDRs that were developed on 32-bit, make sure that the proper size 
    and alignment of the data structures are used for the UDRs to work 
    correctly on 64-bit after re-compilation in 64-bit mode.


Known Defects in this release
=============================

For information about known defects in this release, see: 
Click here for a list


Defects Fixed in this release
=============================

For information about defects fixed in this release, see: 
Click here for a list


Defects Fixed in Previous Releases
==================================

For information about defects fixed in previous releases, see: 
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/idshelp/v117/topic/com.ibm.relnotes.doc/relnotes.htm


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