DB2 Version 9.7 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows

Creating a network-mounted client

To create a network-mounted client environment, you must set up the client configurations on a sample client first. Then you can move the environment to a shared network path. When the client is available on your network, each user must configure their client workstation to use the network-mounted client.

About this task

Network-mounted client environments are supported on Linux and UNIX operating systems with the IBM® Data Server Client or the IBM Data Server Runtime Client packages.

Note: For C shell (csh) environments, use the setenv command instead of the export command to set environment variables. For more information about other command shells, see the topic "Setting environment variables outside the profile registries on Linux and UNIX operating systems" in the DB2 Information Center.
Note: Do not run any instance commands in this instance-less client environment.

Before you begin

As mentioned in the procedure, you must build the network-mounted client environment on a staging client workstation first. Then you can put the client files on a shared network path. The staging client workstation that you use to create your client files and the clients that are part of the network-mounted client environment, must have the same operating system.

Procedure

To deploy a network mounted client:

  1. On the staging client workstation, perform the following steps:
    1. Log in with a user ID that does not have root authority, but does have write access to the network directory.
    2. Install the DB2® client to the $HOME/sqllib path.
    3. Strip all setuid bits from the client installation by using the chmod command:
      chmod -R -s $HOME/sqllib
      For HP-UX, you must enable the variables LD_LIBRARY_PATH and SHLIB_PATH to search for DB2 executable files. Enable the variables by running the following chatr commands against the files in the $HOME/sqllib/adm, $HOME/sqllib/bin, and $HOME/sqllib/security directories:
      chmod u+w $HOME/sqllib/adm/* 
      chatr +s enable $HOME/sqllib/adm/* 
      chmod u-w $HOME/sqllib/adm/*
      
      chmod u+w $HOME/sqllib/bin/* 
      chatr +s enable $HOME/sqllib/bin/* 
      chmod u-w $HOME/sqllib/bin/*
      
      chmod u+w $HOME/sqllib/security/* 
      chatr +s enable $HOME/sqllib/security/* 
      chmod u-w $HOME/sqllib/security/*
    4. Configure the client environment, such as CLI parameters in the db2cli.ini file, the LDAP directory, updating the db2dsdriver.cfg file, DB2 registry variables, and database manager configuration parameters.
    5. Test your client configuration to ensure that it is working as you expect.
    6. Copy the $HOME/sqllib directory and its contents to a shared network location on the code server. This location must be accessible to all client workstations in the network mounted client environment. You must use the -R and -L options with the cp command to copy all files in subdirectories to the network path and materialize all links as real files and directories:
      cp -R -L $HOME/sqllib <network_dir>/sqllib
    7. (Optional) Change ownership of the sqllib network directory, by using the chown command.
      chown -R owner:group <network_dir>/sqllib
      Where owner is the userid and group is the group that is known to all client hosts that share this sqllib directory.
  2. For each user account that uses the network-mounted client:
    1. Set the DB2PATH environment variable to the shared network location where you copied the sqllib directory by using the following command:
      export DB2PATH=<network_dir>/sqllib
    2. Use the db2profile and db2cshrc files in the path that is specified by DB2PATH to configure system environment variables that are used by the local DB2 client. You can access these files by using the following command:
      . $DB2PATH/db2profile
      Or on C shell, enter:
      source $DB2PATH/db2cshrc
    3. Set the DB2_APPL_DATA_PATH environment variable to a local directory to store user-specific data and diagnostic files. For example, to set the application data path to the local directory $HOME/db2, run the following commands:
      mkdir $HOME/db2
      export DB2_APPL_DATA_PATH=$HOME/db2
    4. (Optional) To apply all the environment variable settings detailed above automatically, define them in the .profile file.

What to do next

You can create a user-specific client configuration that is based on the network mounted client environment configuration by performing the following steps:
  1. Copy the shared client configuration on the network to a local directory by using the db2ccprf command. For example, to copy the client configuration to a local directory $HOME/db2, run the following command:
    db2ccprf -t $HOME/db2
  2. Set the DB2_APPL_CFG_PATH environment variable to this local directory. For example, to set the client configuration path to the local directory $HOME/db2, run the following command:
    export DB2_APPL_CFG_PATH=$HOME/db2

Log entries, such as those in the db2diag.log, folder are labeled with the user name of the installer. They are not labeled with the user name that is associated with the process that is running the client.

If you change the client configuration to use a local directory, any reads or updates to the client configuration changes files in the local directory. Any changes that you make to the global client configurations do not affect the clients that use a local client configuration directory.