Question:
I have been running Informix 7.22.TC1 successfully on Windows NT servers with the WebLogic 1.1 JDBC driver.
On Web server restart, my application suddenly shows an error in connection pool creation. Investigating the online server shows the databases gone, and when I use the SQLEditor window, the databases appear but give the -155 error. This happened on one server yesterday, and to another one today.
How can I resurrect the databases from this error? What’s the cause? Am I being hacked?
Answer:
If you have purchased Informix support, now’s a good time to call them. If you don’t have a support contract, and if the data is high-value, you should call Informix support and inquire about getting them to help. If that’s not workable, there are a few things you may be able to do.
First, check to see whether the database files are still in place. Go to the directories (usually IFMXDATAyour_instance_name) and see if the files are there. If so, copy them into another directory. If they’re not there, or if they have a zero size, you’ll have to restore them from an archive. If you have a good, recent archive, it may be easier to restore from it even if you have data files in place.
If you have found intact data files and moved them into another directory, you can reinstall Informix and initialize a new instance. This will be needed if something has managed to destroy the Informix executables or corrupt the configuration data. Make sure that the size of the new rootdbs is exactly the same as the original instance (usually 30MB if you did a default install).
Once the new instance is created, shut down the database and delete the data files for the new instance. Move the original files back into the old location. Restart the database and any data from the old data files should be intact if the files weren’t corrupted.
How did it happen? Check your online.log and see if you can see what the error messages indicate. You may have been hacked. It’s possible that someone got into your directories and deleted the database files.
By the way, Informix 7.22 is a pretty old version. I’d suggest upgrading to 7.30.
