Question:
From a Windows system I am trying to connect to an Informix database running on a Sun Solarix box, which was just moved behind a firewall. The Windows machine is running Access and using ODBC. It appears that the client chooses a random port to connect to the server based on the firewall blocks. Can the database be configured to use set ports rather than what appears to be random?
Answer:
Informix uses dedicated ports to communicate. In recent systems it is often 1526, although this can be configured. On Windows systems you use the setnet32 program to set up the connection parameters to each server. On the server, this is done with the $INFORMIXDIR/etc/sqlhosts file in conjunction with the /etc/hosts and /etc/services file. Client and servers must be configured the same. The ODBC layer runs on top of this Informix native connection.