Configuring SQL Option for DB2 (XDB) for Multi-User Environments

SQL Option for DB2 in Visual COBOL supports scenarios where multiple users use a single XDB Server installed on a TS/Citrix server. Typically, users in such environments would require their own private working locations so they can be isolated from each other's activity on the TS/Citrix server and might require different XDB configuration settings. SQL Option for DB2 provides support for this.

The configuration options for XDB Server are stored in the xdb.ini configuration file installed in the Windows protected area in C:\ProgramData\Micro Focus\Enterprise Developer\mfsql\cfg.

xdb.ini contains both client-side and server-side settings for the XDB tools.

Changing the server-side settings

In most cases, it is not necessary to change XDB Server's server-side settings. If you need to change these settings, however, it is important that you use the XDB tools to modify the xdb.ini file as the tools run with administrator's privileges. This helps avoid some possible issues with Windows virtualizing files in the protected areas that you try to edit without administrator's privileges.

See Changing the Main XDB Server Configuration File.

Changing the client-side settings

In multi-user environments such as TS/Citrix, it is important to provide individual users with their own client-side configuration options for XDB. To cater for that, Visual COBOL provides a utility, XDBSetup, which creates a private XDB configuration file for each user in their local Windows folder on the TS/Citrix machine.

Users would run XDBSetup before they start using any of the XDB components on the TS/Citrix server. They can then use the XDB Client Options utility (XOPT40N) to customize their own version of xdb.ini and specify any required client-side run-time options and a temporary space for the client-side tools. For example, they might want to customize various options such as the isolation level, the lock timeout (for example, if they want a longer record lock timeout for testing), the data formats (if they want a different date format to test the software for internationalization issues), the SQLWizard configuration, and the private area for saved files.

XDBSetup also creates some entries in the user's specific area in the registry which point to the location of the private xdb.ini file. This ensures that XDB Server will use the main xdb.ini file installed under the c:\ProgramData folder, while any of the XDB tools that individual users start will use the private xdb.ini files that users might have customized according to their own preferences.

See Creating a Private XDB Configuration File in a Multi-User Environment.

Configuring the private XDB Server options in batch

If all users must have the same environment and use a specific standard set of client-side options in their private xdb.ini files, a system administrator can set this up for them using a batch file. The batch file would execute XDBSetup to create the private xdb.ini files and then it would execute BOPT40N, the batch version of the XDB Client Options utility, to specify the same client-side options in each private xdb.ini file.

See Changing the Private XDB Server Configuration Files in Batch.