IIUG Software Repository Files

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              Informix LIGHTWEIGHT INSTALLER README v0.2.7
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Last modified: 4/22/2009
                                                                               
DESCRIPTION
===========

The lightweight installer (lwt_install) is a free tool designed to support 
embedding IBM Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) on Windows platforms. It can be 
used as a deployment tool to redeploy pre-configured IDS instances (INFORMIXDIR
and optional data spaces). Similar to the IDS installer, the lightweight 
installer supports certain customizations during deployment - the key 
difference is that the lightweight installer is designed to deploy 
pre-configured instances rather than set them up from scratch at install time.
It can also serve as a data server instance manager (for example to clone and 
create new instances on the same machine - see example 4 below).


The lightweight installer is a command-line utility designed to be called
programmatically or from a script as part of an application installation, and 
therefore supports completely silent IDS deployment. To allow better control 
of deployed instances and post-deployment ease-of-use, the lightweight 
installer takes a number of parameters from the command line. Editing the 
onconfig file gives the most granularity in configuring an IDS instance. In
essence,lwt_install is a lightweight alternative to the IDS silent 
installation mechanism for deployment.

Note that the lightweight installer does not start an IDS instance after 
deployment - this will be added as an option to a later version. To start
the IDS installation from an install script call:

  %INFORMIXDIR%\bin\starts %INFORMIXSERVER% 

and add any command-line options (such as -iy to initialize the disk), or
programmatically send a start service command to the Service Control Manager.


Usage:
======
lwt_install [-f <zip file>] [-p <password> | -system] [-l <logfile>]
            [-silent] [-wow6432] [-sqliport <port>] [-drdaport <port>]
            [-namedpipe] [-servernum <num>] [-rootpath <rootdbs_file]
            [-unzip <unzip_cmd>] [-installdrive <DRIVE> ] [-verbose]
            [-force] [-y]


Uninstall:
----------
lwt_install [-u <path> | -uninstall <path>] [-delifx]



Options	Description
-------------------

  -f <archive>		Specify the full/relative path to the location of the 
                        archive.
  -force		Overwrite existing environment variables/configuration
                        settings.   
  -installdrive <DRIVE>	Specify the drive for IFMXDATA directory containing 
                        dbspace.		
  -log <logfile>	Send progress messages to the file specified by 
                        <logfile> (default C:).
  -p <password>		Informix user password used to create IDS service.
  -servernum <num>	Specify the server number for the instance from 
                        0-255 - default: 0;).
  -silent		Actions are performed in silent mode.
  -system		Create IDS service as local system user.
  -unzip <command>	Specify command to expand the IDS archive - default: 
                        assumes presence of 7-zip on the machine) 
  -verbose		Verbose mode.
  -wow6432		Used to redirect registry access to 32-bit registry 
                        view. Use this option when deploying 32-bit IDS onto 
                        a 64-bit machine.
  -y			Do not prompt for confirmation.
  -namedpipe		Set the primary SQLI protocol to use named pipes.
  -rootpath <rootdbs>	Root dbspace location (default is
                        C:\ifmxdata\<svr_name>\rootdbs_dat.000).
  -drdaport <port>	Set SQLHOSTS drda service port for use with IBM common
                        client (default - 9089)
  -sqliport <port>	SQLHOSTS service port for server instance 
                        (default: 9088)	
  -uninstall <path>	Uninstall IDS from the specified path.
  -delifx		Removes informix user and Informix-Admin group if there
                        are no other IDS installations present on the system.




ON A TEMPLATE MACHINE
---------------------

To use the Lightweight Installer to deploy an IDS instance, first use the 
regular IDS installer to create an instance on a template machine and 
configure/customize the instance as required. 

Configuring the server on the template machine can include modifying ONCONFIG
file parameters, creating databases, tables, and loading the database with 
data. 

The instance (INFORMIXDIR and optionally dbspaces) should then be archived or 
copied for deployment (for example create a zip file of the INFORMIXDIR).

ON THE TARGET MACHINE
---------------------

Prior to running lwt_install on the target machine, set the INFORMIXDIR
environment variable to the preferred installation directory and set
INFORMIXSERVER environment variable to the preferred server instance name. 
Run lwt_install.exe with options to deploy an archived IDS instance. 

Deployment Examples
-------------------

Example 1: Deploying IDS in silent mode using the default 7-zip to 
unarchive the instance;

  Assumes: 
    - 7-zip is installed on the deployment machine
    - INFORMIXDIR, INFORMIXSERVER, ONCONFIG environment variables are set

  lwt_install -p mypassword -y -silent -f idsarchive.zip

  Note that if the ONCONFIG environment variable is not set, the lightweight
  installer will assume the onconfig file is: 
    %INFORMIXDIR%\etc\onconfig.%INFORMIXSERVER%


Example 2: Deploying IDS instance as local system user, using a preferred
unarchiving tool.

   lwt_install -unzip "C:\mytar\tar.exe idsarchive.tar" -system

   Note: You cannot use "-p" password command line option along with 
         "-system".

Example 3: Deploying IDS specifying a preferred protocol and logging progress
           messages.

   lwt_install -protocol onipcnmp -p mypassword -f idsarchive.zip

Example 4: Using lwt_install to create a new server instance.
   
   lwt_install -silent -y -sqliport 9090 -servernum 2 -log C:\log.txt

Example 5: Creating an instance as local system user with drda enabled

   lwt_install -system -y -sqliport 9999 -drdaport 9096 -verbose

Example 6: Creating an instance specifying a preferred location for the root
           dbspace.

   lwt_install -y -rootpath "C:\tmp\rtdbs_dat.000" -verbose

   Note: IDS does not support root dbspace path with spaces.

Example 7: Creating an IDS instance to use named pipe communication protocol

   lwt_install -system -y -namedpipe



Uninstall Examples
------------------

Example 1: Uninstall IDS with displaying status message on the console.

   lwt_install -u "C:\tmp\informix" -verbose

Example 2: Uninstall IDS removing informix user/group account

   lwt_install -u "C:\tmp\informix" -verbose -delifx
   
   Note: -delifx only deletes informix user/group account there are no other 
   IDS installations on the system




ENHANCEMENTS
------------

- This version of lwt_install provides the capability to uninstall IDS by using
  a files list. Files that are created dynamically (for example during
  server initialization) are not in the files list and therefore will not be 
  removed during uninstall. You can manually remove such files after the 
  uninstall, or you can edit the file list yourself to notify the uninstaller
  to remove instance-specific IDS files, and even your own application files.

- You can specify a preferred root dbspace location.

- There is now support for using named pipe communication protocol.

- DRDA is now supported.



KNOWN LIMITATIONS/PLANNED ENHANCEMENTS
--------------------------------------

- If you are embedding IDS within your application, you can package the IDS 
  binaries as part of your application binaries so that IDS files are deployed
  with your application's files. You can then use lwt_install to set up 
  your server instance.

- lwt_install is currently a Windows-only deployment engine. Efforts are under
  way to extend it to other operating systems.


FURTHER ASSISTANCE
------------------

If you have any questions or run into problems - don't give up, send an email 
to Guy Bowerman (gbowerman@yahoo.com) and Tosin Ajayi (tosin430@yahoo.com).