Installing/configuring DB2 Connect V8.1

[Ed Stevens]

A tale of woe, and a question . . .

Last week my boss said to me "we've installed DB2 Connect on this
Solaris box. Make it work."

Now, I've barely seen DB2 Connect on Windows, having fumbled thru one
install and config, with a lot of handholding from IBM Support. I'm
comfortable in unix but have never dealt with DB2 Connect there. (my
main job is as an Oracle DBA, and most of my db's are on Solaris or
AIX) I've found the install docs to be pretty much worthless, and the
other on-line docs worse.

I went in thinking the product was functioning and all I needed to do
was catalog some nodes and remote databases, but immediately
discovered that the only thing done was that an SA had installed the
product. There was no relevent environment setup.

Digging thru another box that had v7 running on it, I finally traced
the settings back to a file called 'db2profile', to be sourced from
the user's .profile. (Where was THAT documented?). From there I
discovered that everything seemed to key off the setting of INSTHOME.
Only db2profile was read only (default from the installation) and
needed to be 'fixed' with this setting. Worked with the SA to get the
permissions to edit the file, and changed

INSTHOME=instan cehomedir

to

INSTHOME=/opt/IBM/DB2/v8.1

but then everything that key off of this, like additions to PATH,
appended '/sqllib' to it, and there is not directory
/opt/IBM/DB2/v8.1/sqllib. Going back to the working v7 installation,
I see that they have

INSTHOME=/local/home/db2inst1

which does have a directory 'sqllib', which contains mostly symlinks
back to /opt/IBMDB2/V7.1.

Now, I could figure out how to replicate all of that an make it work,
but I'm concerned that I'd be reinventing a wheel. I'd much rather do
it 'by the book' if I could only *FIND* the book! Can someone point
me to an on-line source or the proper html help file in the install
directory to explain how to REALLY set this up? Something that
explains required or assumed directories, environment setup, proper
config of them, etc., etc..

TIA.

[Jan M. Nelken]

Ed Stevens wrote:

Jan,

I really don't want to get into a spitting match here, but allow me to
clarify a few things.

Since you choose this level of discussion, I will choose not to participate in
it anymore.

As a departing final remark let me point out to you that in my opinion -
considering manufacturing time delay of producing CD and any notes and
installation guide stored on those CD - I definitely prefer online documentation
which is kept up to date and updated significantly faster.

As Darin and I pointed to you - search mechanism is in place and relevant
information is readily available to anybody who wants to find it.

If you are frustrated and prefer to use this forum to vent it out - it's your
choice and your decision.

Jan M. Nelken