Informix Machine Notes

                      =================================
                            MACHINE SPECIFIC NOTES
                                    FOR
               IBM Informix Database Server 12.10.FC11 PRODUCT RELEASE
                           On Mac OS X Server x86_64
                               DATE: 26 Mar 2018
                      =================================

OS Information : Built on Mac OS X Server 10.9.2. Certified on 10.10.

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

1.  This product was built on Mac OS X Server 10.9.2 with build version 13C64,
    Darwin Kernel Version 13.1.0. And using the following compilers:

      gcc and g++ 4.2.1 (Apple LLVM version 5.1)

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

3.  IBM Informix Database Server uses the libraries and utilities provided by
    the 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 8.0.50.88 will be installed in /Library/ibm/gsk8
          directory on your machine.

       b. The GSKit installation directory must have 60 MB of free disk space.


Check the following web site for the latest Mac OS X system requirements for
IBM Informix Database Server:

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


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

1.  Kernel Parameters

    The values of the kernel parameters that were used for testing this
    product are given below. These values might need to be adjusted depending
    on the application and availability of system resources.

        kern.sysv.shmmax=4398046511104
        kern.sysv.shmmin=1
        kern.sysv.shmmni=512
        kern.sysv.shmseg=512
        kern.sysv.shmall=1073741824
        kern.sysv.semume=10
        kern.sysv.semmsl=87381
        kern.sysv.semmnu=87381
        kern.sysv.semmns=87381
        kern.sysv.semmni=87381
        kern.maxfiles=2147483647
        kern.maxfilesperproc=40000
        kern.maxvnodes=150000
        net.inet.tcp.sendspace=524288
        net.inet.tcp.recvspace=524288

    The kernel parameters can be set permanently in /etc/sysctl.conf file,
    which is processed by the system boot file during system startup.

    The kernel parameters also can be set by running the "sysctl" command.
    Any user can check the value of a parameter, but you must be user root
    (or sudo) to set parameter values. The "sysctl" command takes effect
    immediately, but parameters are reset to their original values during
    a system reboot.

    To check current value of kern.sysv.shmmax, use this command:

        sysctl kern.sysv.shmmax

    To set the value of kern.sysv.shmmax to 4398046511104, use this command:

        sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmmax=4398046511104

2.  Location of Shared Memory

    The ONCONFIG variable SHMBASE is set to the following:

        SHMBASE 0x200000000L

3.  Environment Variables

    It is recommended that the environment variable INFORMIXSTACKSIZE be
    set to 128 (the default is 96) if the application involves operations
    which would require the IBM Informix Database Server to perform recursive
    database tasks (for example, cascading deletes).

4.  ONCONFIG Parameter PRELOAD_DLL_FILE

    It is recommended for using BTS Search Database Extension to set the
    ONCONFIG parameter PRELOAD_DLL_FILE as:

        PRELOAD_DLL_FILE    $INFORMIXDIR/extend/bts.3.10/bts.bld


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

1.  High Performance Loader

    User-defined conversion routines must be provided in a dynamic, shared
    64-bit library called ipldd11a.dylib. This 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 file pointed to by
    PLCONFIG environment variable. For more details, refer the manual
    "High-Performance Loader User's Guide".

    This shared library must be compiled in x86_64 mode on Mac OS X.

2.  IPv6 Support

    The Informix database 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.

    For compatibility with earlier version of Informix client and server
    products, assign each host name 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 the IPv4 address, then an explicit IPv4 address needs to be put in the
    host name field of SQLHOSTS file. Client applications should also use the
    same setting.

3.  Kernel Asynchronous I/O (KAIO)

    KAIO is enabled by default on this platform.

    The following kernel configurations might need to be adjusted to allow
    the necessary number of concurrent asynchronous disk I/Os:

        kern.aiomax - The maximum number of system-wide concurrent
                      asynchronous disk I/Os allowed.

        kern.aioprocmax - The maximum per-process number of concurrent
                          asynchronous disk I/Os allowed.

        kern.aiothreads - Must be equal or greater than the number of CPU VPs
                          that the Informix server has configured.

    To disable KAIO, set the environment variable KAIOOFF to 1:

        KAIOOFF=1 ; export KAIOOFF      ( for Bourne or Korn shell )
        setenv KAIOOFF 1                ( for C shell )

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 2147483647.

        - 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. 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 2147483647. 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 4292870144 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.  Network Protocols

    The following protocols and interfaces are supported on this platform:

       SOCKETS using TCP/IP
       IPC using stream pipe (implemented using UNIX Domain Sockets)

    To use SOCKETS with TCP/IP:

       a. The NETTYPE entry 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 the database
          Server, the NETTYPE entry in the ONCONFIG file and the protocal
          value in the sqlhosts file entry must contain "drsoctcp"

          If a CLI or JCC client wants to connect to the database server
          through DRDA while supporting SQLI connections, you must add a
          DBSERVERALIASES entry to the ONCONFIG file that corresponds to
          the sqlhosts file entry.

    To use IPC (interprocess communication) with stream pipe:

        a.  The NETTYPE entry 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 or 64-bit applications and tools can connect to the 64-bit
    server using either the TCP/IP sockets or the IPC stream pipe protocols.

    The protocol for supporting IBM Informix MaxConnect on this platform
    is "onsocimc".

6.  No Age (Disable Priority Aging)

    The no aging feature that disables priority aging of CPU virtual processors
    by the operating system can be activated by setting the noage option of the
    VPCLASS configuration parameter for the CPU virtual processors. For example,
    the following ONCONFIG entry specifies that there are 8 CPU VPs, each
    without aging:

    VPCLASS cpu,num=8,noage

    When the noage option is used, all oninit processes will run at priority
    -10.

    To override the default priority value for CPU VP class, set the
    environment variable IFMXCPUVPPRIORITY to the desired priority,
    within limits (-20 to 20) before starting the server.

    The server checks and sets the CPU VP process to the defined priority
    if the defined value is within the above range.

    If IFMXCPUVPPRIORITY is not within the limits, or if IFMXCPUVPPRIORITY
    is set to 0, the priority will be set to the default value of -10.

7.  Online Backup and Restore (ON-Bar)

    ON-Bar uses the XBSA interface. 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 the functions, set the BAR_BSALIB_PATH parameter in
    $INFORMIXDIR/etc/$ONCONFIG to the full pathname of the library.

    This dynamic library must be compiled in 64-bit mode.

8.  Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM)

    PAM functionality is supported on Mac OS X. PAM requires the libpam.dylib
    library that is supplied by the Operating System vendor.

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

    The PAM service identifies the PAM module. This PAM module usually is
    located in /usr/lib/pam and its configurations can be set by individual
    configuration files located in the /etc/pam.d directory. Only x86_64
    architecture PAM module can be used by IBM Informix Database Server.

9.  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 GSKit
          packages as follows:

          To remove the packages, run the following as root user:

              cd /Library/ibm/gsk8
              pkgutil --only-files --files com.ibm.gskit8.crypto | xargs rm
              pkgutil --only-dirs --files com.ibm.gskit8.crypto | xargs rmdir
              pkgutil --only-files --files com.ibm.gskit8.ssl | xargs rm
              pkgutil --only-dirs --files com.ibm.gskit8.ssl | xargs rmdir


       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.

10. Simple Password Communications Support Module

    The name of the IBM Informix shared library for Simple Password CSM on
    Mac OS X is libixspw.dylib.


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

1.  Rolling upgrades to this IDS version are supported from version 12.10.xC8 
    or higher.

    Rolling upgrades are not supported in this IDS version from versions 
    older than 12.10.xC8. Such a migration requires changes to disk structures 
    and the conversion process is incompatible with a rolling upgrade. In such 
    cases, when upgrading HDR and RSS secondary servers, you must follow the 
    steps listed in the on-line documentation under "Migrating an offline 
    cluster to a new major version." 

2.  Informix Interface for Tivoli Storage Manager. Without this
    feature ON-Bar will not be able to Backup/Restore data using
    IBM Tivoli Storage Manager.

3.  Processor Affinity

4.  Network FASTPOLL

5.  Shared Disk Secondary Servers

6.  The UNIX graphical tools ipload, onperf and xtree

7.  OnSNMP

8.  MQ Messaging Database Extension

9.  Direct I/O for cooked files used for dbspace chunks

10.  J/Foundation

11. XML Publishing


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

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


(C) Copyright IBM Corp. 2002, 2017
(C) Copyright HCL Technologies Ltd. 2017, 2018. All Rights Reserved.