Install DB2 via the command line

Links download screenI installed DB2 on an Ubuntu Linux server via SSH and the command line installer this morning. This is not particularly exotic, but is different from using the GUI installer on either platform. Still, I should jot down my steps:

  1. SSH to your server. On Windows, use Putty or the OpenSSL package in Cygwin.
  2. Open up a text mode browser like lynx or links
  3. Go to http://www.ibm.com/db2/express/
  4. Download Express-C. Get some tea and snacks while that happens.
  5. tar xzvvf the file and cd into the directory
  6. If the next step fails, you may need to install some libraries. I had to sudo apt-get install libstdc++5
  7. sudo ./db2setup
  8. You now need to manually configure the DB2 server
    1. Set up users and groups
    2. Create a DB2 Administration Server
    3. Create a DB2 instance
    4. Create links to DB2 files
    5. Configure TCP/IP communication
      1. Configure services file
      2. Update database manager
      3. Set communications protocols
    6. Apply license (already done, verifiable by db2licm -l)

Extra notes just in case:

  • sudo is the usual way to escalate privileges on Ubuntu.
  • sudo su - db2inst1 is the way to switch users to, in this case, user db2inst1.
  • Default settings in the steps above make db2inst1 the user with SYSADM permissions for DB2.
  • For SFTP file transfer, you can use WinSCP or Filezilla with the same credentials as for SSH.

2 Comments to “Install DB2 via the command line”

  1. RK 6 October 2008 at 10:02 #

    Which version of ubuntu are you running on? Is db2-express C now supported for Hardy Heron yet?

  2. Leons Petrazickis 6 October 2008 at 10:58 #

    This is on 8.04 Hardy Heron. I am not sure whether it is officially supported yet, but it works for me.