============================================ Informix LIGHTWEIGHT INSTALLER README v0.2.7 ============================================ 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 ] [-p | -system] [-l ] [-silent] [-wow6432] [-sqliport ] [-drdaport ] [-namedpipe] [-servernum ] [-rootpath ] [-installdrive ] [-verbose] [-force] [-y] Uninstall: ---------- lwt_install [-u | -uninstall ] [-delifx] Options Description ------------------- -f Specify the full/relative path to the location of the archive. -force Overwrite existing environment variables/configuration settings. -installdrive Specify the drive for IFMXDATA directory containing dbspace. -log Send progress messages to the file specified by (default C:). -p Informix user password used to create IDS service. -servernum 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 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 Root dbspace location (default is C:\ifmxdata\\rootdbs_dat.000). -drdaport Set SQLHOSTS drda service port for use with IBM common client (default - 9089) -sqliport SQLHOSTS service port for server instance (default: 9088) -uninstall 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).