Welcome
Administering
In addition to administering the database server, you can tune performance, replicate data, and archive data.
Backup and Restore Guide
The HCL® Informix® Backup and Restore Guide describes how to use the HCL Informix 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.
Backup and restore configuration parameter reference
Backup and restore configuration parameters
These topics describe the configuration parameters that you use with the , ontape, and archecker utilities.
ON-Bar and ontape configuration parameters and environment variable
Many properties of the and ontape utilities are controlled by configuration parameters in the onconfig file. also has an environment variable.

HCL Informix® V15.0.0 documentation
Welcome to the documentation for HCL Informix® 15.0.0 and related client tools and products.
Product overview
HCL Informix® is a fast and scalable database server that manages traditional relational, object-relational, and dimensional databases. Its small footprint and self-managing capabilities are suited to embedded data-management solutions.
Installing
These topics describe how to install HCL Informix® database servers, client products, and modules.
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.
- Backup and Restore Guide
  The HCL® Informix® Backup and Restore Guide describes how to use the HCL Informix 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.
  - Overview of backup and restore
    These topics provide an overview of backup and restore concepts. They also provide information about planning for backup and restore operations.
  - ON-Bar backup and restore system
  - ontape backup and restore system
  - Backup and restore a Remote Secondary Server(RSS)
  - Integrated Backup Encryption
    These topics provide information about Integrated Backup Encryption.
  - HCL Informix® Primary Storage Manager
    HCL Informix® Primary Storage Manager is an application that manages storage devices used for backup and restore requests that are issued by . This storage manager supports both serial and parallel processing for backup and restore requests.
  - archecker table level restore utility
  - Backup and restore configuration parameter reference
    - Backup and restore configuration parameters
      These topics describe the configuration parameters that you use with the , ontape, and archecker utilities.
      - ON-Bar and ontape configuration parameters and environment variable
        Many properties of the and ontape utilities are controlled by configuration parameters in the onconfig file. also has an environment variable.
        ARCHIVE_UNLOGGED_OBJECTS configuration parameter
        ARCHIVE_UNLOGGED_OBJECTS configuration parameter specifies if a backup is allowed on an RS secondary server if non-logging objects exist in the primary database server.
        BACKUP_FILTER configuration parameter
        Use the BACKUP_FILTER configuration parameter to specify the path name and any options for an external filter program that you use with the ON-Bar or ontape utility.
        BAR_ACT_LOG configuration parameter
        Use the BAR_ACT_LOG configuration parameter to specify the full path name of the activity log.
        BAR_BSALIB_PATH configuration parameter
        Use the BAR_BSALIB_PATH configuration parameter to specify the path name and file name of the XBSA shared library for the storage manager that you use.
        BAR_CKPTSEC_TIMEOUT configuration parameter
        The BAR_CKPTSEC_TIMEOUT configuration parameter specifies the amount of time, in seconds, that an RS secondary server should wait for a checkpoint to arrive from the primary server while performing an external backup.
        BAR_DEBUG configuration parameter
        Use the BAR_DEBUG configuration parameter to specify the amount of debugging information that the database server captures in the activity log.
        BAR_ENCRYPTION configuration parameter
        Use the BAR_ENCRYPTION parameter to encrypt the backups.
        BAR_DECRYPTION configuration parameter
        Use the BAR_DECRYPTION parameter to decrypt the backups.
        BAR_DEBUG_LOG configuration parameter
        Use the BAR_DEBUG_LOG parameter to specify the location and name of the debug log.
        BAR_HISTORY configuration parameter
        Use the BAR_HISTORY configuration parameter to specify whether the sysutils database maintains a backup history when you use onsmsync to expire old backups.
        BAR_IXBAR_PATH configuration parameter
        Use the BAR_IXBAR_PATH configuration parameter to change the path and name of the boot file.
        BAR_MAX_BACKUP configuration parameter
        Use the BAR_MAX_BACKUP parameter to specify the maximum number of parallel processes that are allowed for each command.
        BAR_MAX_RESTORE configuration parameter
        Use the BAR_MAX_RESTORE parameter to specify the maximum number of parallel restore processes that are allowed during an restore operation.
        BAR_NB_XPORT_COUNT configuration parameter
        Use the BAR_NB_XPORT_COUNT configuration parameter to specify the number of data buffers that each onbar_d process can use to exchange data with the database server.
        BAR_PERFORMANCE configuration parameter
        Use the BAR_PERFORMANCE configuration parameter to specify the type of performance statistics to report to the activity log for backup and restore operations.
        BAR_PROGRESS_FREQ configuration parameter
        Use the BAR_PROGRESS_FREQ configuration parameter to specify, in minutes, the frequency of the progress messages in the activity log for backup and restore operations.
        BAR_RETRY configuration parameter
        Use the BAR_RETRY configuration parameter to specify how many times onbar should try a data backup, logical-log backup, or restore operation if the first attempt fails.
        BAR_SEC_ALLOW_BACKUP configuration parameter
        Use the BAR_SEC_ALLOW_BACKUP configuration parameter on an RSS node to enable the taking of archives and log backups on that node using either onbar or ontape.
        BAR_SIZE_FACTOR configuration parameter
        Use the BAR_SIZE_FACTOR configuration parameter to augment the estimate for the size of a backup object, before the backup.
        BAR_XFER_BUF_SIZE configuration parameter
        Use the BAR_XFER_BUF_SIZE configuration parameter to specify the size of each transfer buffer.
        IFX_BAR_NO_BSA_PROVIDER environment variable
        Set the IFX_BAR_NO_BSA_PROVIDER environment variable to force ON-Bar to use the sm_versions file as the source of information about the XBSA library for the storage manager.
        IFX_BAR_NO_LONG_BUFFERS environment variable
        Set the IFX_BAR_NO_LONG_BUFFERS environment variable to prevent the size of transfer buffers from exceeding 64 KB when the BAR_XFER_BUF_SIZE configuration parameter is set to a long transfer buffer size value.
        IFX_BAR_USE_DEDUP environment variable
        Set the IFX_BAR_USE_DEDUP environment variable to optimize the deduplication capabilities of storage managers.
        IFX_TSM_OBJINFO_OFF environment variable
        Set the IFX_TSM_OBJINFO_OFF environment variable to disable support for restoring backup objects that are replicated, imported, or exported between IBM® Spectrum Protect servers.
        ISM_DATA_POOL configuration parameter
        ISM_LOG_POOL parameter
        LTAPEBLK configuration parameter
        Use the LTAPEBLK configuration parameter to specify the block size of the device to which the logical logs are backed up when you use ontape for dbspace backups.
        LTAPEDEV configuration parameter
        Use the LTAPEDEV configuration parameter to specify the device or directory file system to which the logical logs are backed up when you use ontape for backups.
        LTAPESIZE configuration parameter
        Use the LTAPESIZE configuration parameter to specify the maximum tape size of the device to which the logical logs are backed up when you use ontape for backups.
        RESTARTABLE_RESTORE configuration parameter
        Use the RESTARTABLE_RESTORE configuration parameter to enable or disable restartable restores.
        RESTORE_FILTER configuration parameter
        TAPEBLK configuration parameter
        Use the TAPEBLK configuration parameter to specify the block size of the device to which ontape writes during a storage-space backup.
        TAPEDEV configuration parameter
        Use the TAPEDEV configuration parameter to specify the device or directory file system to which the ontape utility backs up storage spaces.
        TAPESIZE configuration parameter
        Use the TAPESIZE parameter specifies the size of the device to which the ontape utility backs up storage spaces.
      - The archecker utility configuration parameters and environment variable
        These topics describe the AC_CONFIG environment variable and the configuration parameters that you use with the archecker utility.
      - Informix® Primary Storage Manager configuration parameters
        The HCL Informix® Primary Storage Manager uses the information in some specific configuration parameters.
      - Event alarm configuration parameters
        When you set configuration parameters for use with the ON-Bar and ontape utilities, also determine if you need to adjust the ALARMPROGRAM and ALRM_ALL_EVENTS configuration parameters.
  - Cloud Backup
    These topics provide information about storing and retrieving the backups directly to the ecosystem of selected cloud providers, namely Amazon S3 and Softlayer Object Storage.
  - Appendixes
- Enterprise Replication
  The describes the concepts of data replication using HCL Informix® Enterprise Replication, including how to design your replication system, as well as administer and manage data replication throughout your enterprise.
Migrating and upgrading
You can upgrade to the 15.0.0 release of HCL Informix® or migrate from other database servers to Informix. Upgrading is an in-place migration method that uses your existing hardware and operating system software. Some changes to the Informix database server can affect upgrading from a previous release.
Client APIs and tools
You can use the HCL Informix® implementation of client APIs to develop applications for Informix database servers.
Embedding Informix®
When you embed HCL Informix®, you can use enterprise-class high-availability and high performance with embeddability features such as easy programmability, a small disk and memory footprint, and silent deployment.
Extending Informix®
Beyond standard relational database objects, HCL Informix® can be extended to handle specialized data types, access methods, routines, and other objects. Informix includes many built-in extensions that are fully integrated in the database server. Informix also provides modules, which are packages of extended database objects for a particular purpose and that are installed separately from the database server. Alternatively, you can create your own user-defined objects for Informix.
Data warehousing
In addition to designing and implementing Informix® dimensional databases, you can use tools to create data warehouse applications and optimize your data warehouse queries.
Designing databases
The first step in creating a relational database is to construct a data model, which is a precise, complete definition of the data you want to store. After you prepare your data model, you must implement it as a database and tables. To implement your data model, you first select a data type for each column and then you create a database and tables and populate the tables with data. You can also implement fragmentation strategies and control access to your data.
JSON compatibility
You can use the popular JSON-oriented query language created by MongoDB to interact with data stored in HCL Informix®.
Security
You can secure your Informix® database server and the data that is stored in your Informix databases. You can encrypt data, secure connections, control user privileges and access, and audit data security.
SQL programming
You can use the HCL Informix® implementation of the SQL language to develop applications for Informix database servers.
Troubleshooting HCL Informix®
Several troubleshooting techniques, tools, and resources are available for resolving problems that you encounter in your HCL Informix® database server environment.

ON-Bar and ontape configuration parameters and environment variable

Many properties of the and ontape utilities are controlled by configuration parameters in the onconfig file. also has an environment variable.

Important: does not use the TAPEDEV, TAPEBLK, TAPESIZE, LTAPEBLK, and LTAPESIZE configuration parameters. checks if LTAPEDEV is set to /dev/null on UNIX™ or NUL on Windows™.