Prepare the runtime environment - connecting to the database

In order to connect to IBM® Informix®, you must have a database driver "dbmifx" in $FGLDIR/dbdrivers.
Make sure the IBM Informix client environment variables are properly set.
Check for example INFORMIXDIR (the path to the installation directory), INFORMIXSERVER (the name of the server defined in the sqlhosts list), etc. For more details, see the IBM Informix documentation.
In order to connect to an IBM Informix server, you must define a line in the $INFORMIXDIR/etc/sqlhosts file, referencing the server name specified in the INFORMIXSERVER environment variable.
On Windows® platforms, the sqlhost entries are defined in the registry database. See IBM Informix documentation.

Verify the environment variable defining the search path for IBM Informix SDK database client shared libraries.

Table 1. Shared library environment setting for IBM Informix SDK version
IBM Informix SDK version	Shared library environment setting
All versions	UNIX™: Add $INFORMIXDIR/lib, $INFORMIXDIR/lib/esql, $INFORMIXDIR/lib/tools and $INFORMIXDIR/lib/cli to LD_LIBRARY_PATH (or its equivalent). Windows: Add %INFORMIXDIR%\bin to PATH.

Check the Informix database client locale settings.
The Informix database client locale must match the locale used by the runtime system (LC_ALL, LANG):
The Informix environment variables defining locale settings are:
- CLIENT_LOCALE: defines the locale of the client application.
- DB_LOCALE: defines the locale of the database (matters at DB creation!)
- SERVER_LOCALE: defines the locale to be used by the server to interact with the OS file system.
To verify if the IBM Informix client environment is correct, you can start the SQL command interpreter:
```
$ dbaccess - - 
> CONNECT TO "dbname" USER "appadmin"; 
ENTER PASSWORD: password
```
Set up the FGLPROFILE entries for database connections.
Important:
Make sure that you are using the ODI driver corresponding to the database client and server version.