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Administering
In addition to administering the database server, you can tune performance, replicate data, and archive data.
System administration
These topics contain concepts, procedures, and reference information for database and database server administrators to use for managing and tuning HCL Informix® database servers.
DB-Access User's Guide
The Informix® DB-Access User's Guide describes how to use the DB-Access utility to access, modify, and retrieve information from Informix database servers.
Getting started with DB-Access
DB-Access provides a menu-driven interface for entering, running, and debugging Structured Query Language (SQL) statements and Stored Procedure Language (SPL) routines. You can also run DB-Access interactively from the command line.
Start DB-Access
You start DB-Access by running the dbaccess command from the command line. You can choose whether to use the DB-Access menu interface or the command-line interface.
dbaccess command: Start DB-Access
Use the dbaccess command to start DB-Access. Include options to specify the database, command files, or to go to a specific menu screen.
Example: View the Information Schema
This example shows how to start DB-Access and view the Information Schema for the specified database.

Administering
In addition to administering the database server, you can tune performance, replicate data, and archive data.
- System administration
  These topics contain concepts, procedures, and reference information for database and database server administrators to use for managing and tuning HCL Informix® database servers.
  - List of utilities
    HCL Informix® includes utilities and applications that you can use to perform administrative tasks and capture information about configuration and performance.
  - Administrator's Guide
    The Informix® Administrator's Guide provides the information required to administer HCL Informix.
  - Administrator's Reference
    The Informix® Administrator's Reference includes comprehensive descriptions of HCL Informix configuration parameters, the system-monitoring interface (SMI) tables in the sysmaster database, the syntax of database server utilities such as onmode and onstat, logical-log records, disk structures, event alarms, and unnumbered error messages.
  - DB-Access User's Guide
    The Informix® DB-Access User's Guide describes how to use the DB-Access utility to access, modify, and retrieve information from Informix database servers.
    - Getting started with DB-Access
      DB-Access provides a menu-driven interface for entering, running, and debugging Structured Query Language (SQL) statements and Stored Procedure Language (SPL) routines. You can also run DB-Access interactively from the command line.
      - Requirements for the Informix® server DB-Access utility
        Before you start DB-Access, prepare the Informix® server environment.
      - Requirements for the Informix® Client Software Development Kit DB-Access utility
        Before you start DB-Access on a client, set up the client environment.
      - Demonstration databases
        You can practice using DB-Access with a demonstration database.
      - Start DB-Access
        You start DB-Access by running the dbaccess command from the command line. You can choose whether to use the DB-Access menu interface or the command-line interface.
        dbaccess command: Start DB-Access
        Use the dbaccess command to start DB-Access. Include options to specify the database, command files, or to go to a specific menu screen.
        CONNECTION menu options
        The CONNECTION menu options for the dbaccess command represent short cut keys for the CONNECTION menu.
        DATABASE menu options
        The DATABASE menu options for the dbaccess command represent short cut keys for the DATABASE menu.
        QUERY-LANGUAGE menu options
        The QUERY-LANGUAGE menu options for the dbaccess command represent short cut keys for the QUERY-LANGUAGE menu.
        TABLE menu options
        The TABLE menu options for the dbaccess command represent short cut keys for the TABLE menu.
        Example: Start DB-Access for a database
        This example shows how to start DB-Access and specify a database to which to connect.
        Example: Run a command file
        This example shows how to start DB-Access and run a command file that contains SQL statements.
        Example: View the Information Schema
        This example shows how to start DB-Access and view the Information Schema for the specified database.
        Example: Check for ANSI compliance
        This example shows how to start DB-Access and check whether a database is ANSI-compliant.
        Example: Show nonprintable characters in hexadecimal
        This example starts DB-Access and activates the hexadecimal load and unload format (XLUF) so that the LOAD and UNLOAD SQL statements can format nonprintable ASCII signs in hexadecimal format.
        Run DB-Access in interactive mode without menus
        If you do not want to use the menus and do not have a prepared SQL file, use your keyboard or standard input device to enter SQL statements from the command line.
    - The full-screen menu interface
      The DB-Access full-screen menu interface guides you through running SQL statements.
    - Appendixes
  - High-Performance Loader User's Guide
    The describes how to use the HCL Informix® to load and unload large quantities of data efficiently to or from Informix databases.
  - Performance Guide
    The Informix® Performance Guide describes how to configure and operate your HCL Informix database server to improve overall system throughput and to improve the performance of SQL queries.
  - SNMP Subagent Guide
    The describes the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and the software that you need to use SNMP to monitor and manage HCL Informix® database servers and databases.
  - InformixHQ Guide
    InformixHQ is a modern web console for visualizing, monitoring, and managing your Informix server instances. It is purpose built for ease-of-use, scaling out, and optimizing DevOps needs. It provides critical performance management capabilities, monitoring how key performance metrics are changing over time and tracking how efficiently Informix is running your workload even when you’ve stepped away from your screen. Its monitoring system feeds directly into a customizable alerting system so you can be immediately alerted via email, Twilio, or PagerDuty whenever an issue occurs on one of your Informix database server instances. InformixHQ is designed to be scalable to efficiently manage and monitor as many Informix database server instances as you need. Moreover, it's a tool that can be shared by the DBAs, the app developers, the ops engineers, and management and accessed from any desktop, laptop, or mobile device. InformixHQ is the centralized hub for graphical monitoring, alerting, and administration of your Informix database servers.
- Backup and Restore Guide
  The Informix® Backup and Restore Guide describes how to use the Informix ON-Bar and ontape utilities to back up and restore database server data. These utilities enable you to recover your databases after data is lost or becomes corrupted due to hardware or software failure or accident.
- Enterprise Replication
  The HCL® Informix® Enterprise Replication Guide describes the concepts of data replication using Informix Enterprise Replication, including how to design your replication system, as well as administer and manage data replication throughout your enterprise.

Example: View the Information Schema

This example shows how to start DB-Access and view the Information Schema for the specified database.

The xpg4_is.sql file in the $INFORMIXDIR/etc directory creates the Information Schema and installs the views for a specified database. The following command creates the Information Schema for database mystores:

dbaccess mystores $INFORMIXDIR/etc/xpg4_is.sql

The Information Schema adds to the database four information-only views that conform to X/Open XPG4 with Informix® extensions. After you run xpg4_is.sql, use DB-Access to retrieve information about the tables and columns that you have access to in the specified database.

Tip: Do not install XPG4-compliant views on an ANSI database, because the format of XPG4-compliant views differs considerably from the format of the ANSI-compliant Information Schema views that are defined by the SQL standards committee.