Installation requirements for DB2 Connect server products (AIX)

Before you install DB2 Connect™ server products on AIX^® operating systems, ensure that the system you choose meets the necessary operating system, hardware, software, and communications requirements.

To install a DB2 Connect server product, such as DB2 Connect Enterprise Edition, the following requirements must be met:

Installation requirements

Table 1. AIX installation requirements
Operating System	Hardware
AIX Version 5.3 64-bit AIX kernel is required AIX 5.3 Technology Level (TL) 6 and Service Pack (SP) 2 plus APAR IZ03063 Minimum C++ runtime level is xlC.rte 9.0.0.1 and xlC.aix50.rte 9.0.0.1. These files are included in the August 2007 IBM^® C++ Runtime Environment Components for AIX package. AIX Version 6.1 64-bit AIX kernel is required Minimum C++ runtime level is xlC.rte 9.0.0.1 and xlC.aix61.rte 9.0.0.1. These files are included in the October 2007 IBM C++ Runtime Environment Components for AIX package.	64-bit Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP) architecture¹ All processors that are capable of running the supported AIX operating systems.

¹To verify that it is a CHRP architecture system, issue the command lscfg and look for the following output: Model Architecture: chrp

Software requirements

Use the bosboot command to switch to the 64-bit kernel.
To switch to a 64-bit kernel, you require root authority and should enter the following commands:
```
   ln -sf /usr/lib/boot/unix_64 /unix    ln -sf /usr/lib/boot/unix_64 /usr/lib/boot/unix    bosboot -a    shutdown -Fr
```
For application development and runtime considerations, see the topics in Supported programming languages and compilers for database application development.
You can download the latest IBM C++ Runtime Environment Components for AIX from the IBM AIX XL C and C++ support web site.
One of the following browsers is required to view online help and to run First Steps (db2fs):
- Mozilla 1.4 and up
- Firefox 1.0 and up
- Netscape 7.0 and up
For details regarding known AIX issues, see www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?&uid=swg21165448

Communication requirements

When using a communication protocol, you have the following requirements:

For TCP/IP connectivity, no additional software is required.
For LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) support, you require an IBM SecureWay^® Directory Client V3.2.1 or later.

DB2 product installation on NFS (Network File System)

The installation of DB2^® products on NFS (Network File System) is not recommended. Running DB2 products on NFS (for example, NFS mounting /opt/IBM/db2/V9.5 and then running off code that was physically installed on a remote system) requires several manual setup steps. There are also a number of potential issues with setting up NFS for a DB2 server. These include possible problems that involve:

Performance (impacted by network performance)
Availability (you are allowing a single point of failure)
Licensing (there is no checking done across machines)
Diagnosing NFS errors can be difficult

As mentioned, the setup for NFS will require several manual actions including:

Ensuring that the mount point preserve the install path
Permission must be controlled (for example, write permission should not be given to the mounting machine)
DB2 registries have to be set up manually and maintained across all mounting machines
The db2ls command, which lists installed DB2 products and features, must be set up and maintained properly if you need to detect DB2 products and features
More care is required when updating your DB2 product environment
More steps are required when cleaning up on the exporting machine and the mounting machine

For detailed instructions, see the "Setting up DB2 for UNIX^® and Linux^® on NFS mounted file systems" white paper in http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/db2/library/long/dm-0609lee.

Parent topic: Installing a DB2 Connect server product (AIX)