CSM Configuration File

The concsm.cfg file describes the communication support module (CSM) and is required only if you use a CSM. An entry in the file is a single line and is limited to 1024 characters. After you describe the CSM in the concsm.cfg file, you can enable it in the options parameter of the sqlhosts file.

The concsm.cfg file resides in the $INFORMIXDIR/etc directory by default. If you want to store the file somewhere else, you can override the default location by setting the INFORMIXCONCSMCFG environment variable to the full pathname of the new location. For information on setting the environment variable INFORMIXCONCSMCFG, refer to the IBM Informix: Guide to SQL Reference.

Format of the CSM Configuration File

The concsm.cfg file entry has the following format:

csmname(lib-paths, "csm-global-option", 
   "csm-connection-options")

The csmname variable is the name that you assign to the communications support module. The lib-paths parameter has the following format:

"client=lib-path-clientsdk-csm, server=lib-path-server-csm"

The lib-path-clientsdk-csm is the full pathname, including the filename, of the shared library that is the CSM of the client, and the client applications use this CSM to communicate with the database server. The CSM is normally installed in $INFORMIXDIR/lib/client/csm.

The lib-path-server-csm is the full pathname, including the filename, of the shared library that is the CSM of the database server. The CSM is normally installed in $INFORMIXDIR/lib/csm, and the database server uses the CSM to communicate with the clients. The following restrictions apply to the CSM pathnames:

• Characters '=', '"' and ',' are not allowed to be part of the pathname.
• White spaces cannot be used between '=' and the pathname or between pathname and ',' or '"' unless the white spaces are part of the pathname.

The lib-paths parameter can alternatively have the following format:

"lib-path-csm"

The lib-path-csm is the full pathname, including the filename, of the shared library that is the CSM. In this case, the same CSM is used by both the client applications and the database server.

The csm-global option is not used at this time for PWDCSM.

The csm-connection-options option can contain the following options.

Setting

Result

p=1

The password is mandatory for authentication.

p=0

The password is not mandatory. If the client provides it, the password is encrypted and used for authentication.

An unknown option placed in csm-connection-options results in a context initialization error.

You can put a null value in the csm-connection-options field. For Client SDK before Version 2.3, if the csm-connection-options field is null, the default behavior is p=1. For Client SDK, Version 2.3 and later, if the csm-connection-options field is null, the default behavior is p=0.

The concsm.cfg Entry for Password Encryption

The following two examples illustrate the two alternatives for parameters you must enter in the concsm.cfg file to define the IBM Informix Password Communication Support Module:

PSWDCSM("client=/usr/informix/lib/client/csm/libixspw.so,
            server=/usr/informix/lib/csm/libixspw.so", "", "")

PSWDCSM("/usr/informix/lib/csm/libixspw.so", "", "")

The following example shows the csm-connection-options field set to 0, so no password is necessary:

PSWDCSM("/work/informix/csm/libixspw.so","","p=0")