[comp.databases] Informix transfer problem

sys0001@dircon.uucp (Ben Knox) (09/26/90)

I've just transferred an Informix database running under ESQL to a new
machine, but am having problems getting it going. The transfer was done
with cpio and all directory/file permissions and ownerships were preserved.

I keep getting error -349 (Database not selected yet). This only happens
however, when I try to access the database as another user (ie not the
owner of the database). 

The one thing that has changed is the User Number (not the user name!) of 
the owner of the database -- this is running under Xenix. However, a
global chown command was run to all files which belonged to the original
user nunber to make them belong to the new user number. If you look at the
Info for the database tables in SQL, the owner's user name is correctly shown.

Is there something else which needs to be done in order to get things working
again?

I would have thought that if the change in owner number was affecting things,
then surely only the owner's access to the database would be ceased...?
In this case, however, it is all the other users who cannot get access
(and their user numbers and user names have not changed in the move).

Incidentally, although the actual databases were transferred by tar,
the Informix binaries, libraries etc were reinstalled from the distribution
disks.

Regards, Ben
-- 
sys0001@dircon.UUCP   or   sys0001%dircon@ukc.ac.uk

lugnut@sequent.UUCP (Don Bolton) (09/26/90)

In article <1990Sep25.170902.18376@dircon.uucp> sys0001@dircon.uucp (Ben Knox) writes:
>I've just transferred an Informix database running under ESQL to a new
>machine, but am having problems getting it going. The transfer was done
>with cpio and all directory/file permissions and ownerships were preserved.
>
>I keep getting error -349 (Database not selected yet). This only happens
>however, when I try to access the database as another user (ie not the
>owner of the database). 

I had a different problem copying a database across machines. It said
the database didn't exist, yet it listed it in the catalog! The lesson
I learned is *not* to copy the database itself, but the create scripts
and data. Then its a matter of creating and loading. 

Hope someone can really answer your question.

>The one thing that has changed is the User Number (not the user name!) of 
>the owner of the database -- this is running under Xenix. However, a
>global chown command was run to all files which belonged to the original
>user nunber to make them belong to the new user number. If you look at the
>Info for the database tables in SQL, the owner's user name is correctly shown.
>
>Is there something else which needs to be done in order to get things working
>again?
>
>I would have thought that if the change in owner number was affecting things,
>then surely only the owner's access to the database would be ceased...?
>In this case, however, it is all the other users who cannot get access
>(and their user numbers and user names have not changed in the move).
>
>Incidentally, although the actual databases were transferred by tar,
>the Informix binaries, libraries etc were reinstalled from the distribution
>disks.
>
>Regards, Ben
>-- 
>sys0001@dircon.UUCP   or   sys0001%dircon@ukc.ac.uk

aland@informix.com (alan denney) (10/04/90)

In article <1990Sep25.170902.18376@dircon.uucp> sys0001@dircon.uucp (Ben Knox) writes:
>I've just transferred an Informix database running under ESQL to a new
>machine, but am having problems getting it going. The transfer was done
>with cpio and all directory/file permissions and ownerships were preserved.
>
>I keep getting error -349 (Database not selected yet). This only happens
>however, when I try to access the database as another user (ie not the
>owner of the database). 
>
>The one thing that has changed is the User Number (not the user name!) of 
>the owner of the database -- this is running under Xenix. However, a
>global chown command was run to all files which belonged to the original
>user nunber to make them belong to the new user number. If you look at the
>Info for the database tables in SQL, the owner's user name is correctly shown.

That's cuz Informix doesn't store uids -- just user names. 

You make no mention of *groups*, however -- that is probably the
problem.  All .dbs directories must be owner = creating dba, group =
informix, permissions 770.  The files within the .dbs must be same
owner and group, perms 660.  The group-id is probably the problem.

>Is there something else which needs to be done in order to get things working
>again?

If you are using a different port, you may need to resize the index
nodes in the index files.  If so, bcheck each table and use the -s
option to resize old index files to the new node size.

>Incidentally, although the actual databases were transferred by tar,
>the Informix binaries, libraries etc were reinstalled from the distribution
>disks.

Doing otherwise is just *asking* for trouble...

>Regards, Ben


--
Alan Denney  # aland@informix.com # {pyramid|uunet}!infmx!aland

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