Free DB2 Express-C 9.5 on SuSE Linux Enterprise Server

IBM DB2's free version "DB2 Express-C" is available for download at db2express.com. So far, I've successfully installed and uninstalled DB2 Express on SLES 10 SP2. While there was a command line installer included (db2_install), the server wouldn't start after a supposedly successful install. I figured I would have to use the GUI install, but my SLES instance doesn't run X-windows so I had to download X-Win32 and export my display (export DISPLAY=cracklin:0.0) to my laptop and go from there.

Administration of DB2 Express-C is performed using IBM Data Server Client (registration required), which also includes the IBM DB2 OLE DB drivers needed to create a DB2 linked server in SQL Server.

After working with the Server Client (which contains the Control Center, DB2's equivalent to SQL Server's Enterprise Manager), I wanted to reinstall DB2 with different parameters, specifically the administrator account and the TCP port. DB2's default port is 50000 but the Linux install sets it to 50001 for some reason. I can probably change this using the built in command-line tools but I didn't want to invest to time to track it down, so I uninstalled DB2 and reinstalled the server by executing the following:

chmod +x /opt/ibm/db2/V9.5/instance/* chmod +x /opt/ibm/db2/V9.5/bin/* chmod +x /opt/ibm/db2/V9.5/adm/* chmod +x /opt/ibm/db2/V9.5/das/bin/* /opt/ibm/db2/V9.5/das/bin/db2admin stop /opt/ibm/db2/V9.5/instance/dasdrop /opt/ibm/db2/V9.5/bin/db2ilist /opt/ibm/db2/V9.5/adm/db2stop force /opt/ibm/db2/V9.5/bin/db2 terminate /opt/ibm/db2/V9.5/instance/db2idrop db2inst1 /opt/ibm/db2/V9.5/install/db2_deinstall -a rm -rf /opt/ibm/db2

Then I reinstalled with a whole new perspective on the way things work. If you're interested in what the IBM Control Center looks like, here's a sample from my own environment (Windows client, Linux server).

Click to enlarge.

So far, so fun :)