Installation¶

Installing for Linux¶

When installing for Linux, you first need to install on a Windows PC so you have access to the migration utility on Windows and the shared objects that will be needed on Linux. Select the Complete setup type option in the Flex2SQL Setup Wizard to install the Linux drivers.

When the Complete option is selected, the linux subdirectory is included in the install tree directory under the <Program Files>\Mertech Data Systems\DB Drivers\DataFlex folder

The client subdirectory contains the libraries used by MySQL and PostgreSQL. The shared subdirectory contains the drivers for Oracle (ora_drv.so), MySQL (mdsmysql.so), MariaDB (f2s_md.so) and PostgreSQL (mdspgsql.so). These drivers were compiled without any of their library dependencies.

The static subdirectory contains the drivers for Oracle (ora_drv.so), MySQL (mdsmysql.so), MariaDB (f2s_md.so) and PostgreSQL (mdspgsql.so). These drivers were compiled with the basic environment libraries.

Use the ldd command to list the driver’s shared library dependencies. For example: ldd ora_drv.so. The runtime environment must provide the required libraries.

ciText for PostgreSQL¶

The PostgreSQL ciText module provides ciText, a locale-aware, case-insensitive Text type. Essentially, LOWER() is called when comparing ciText values. Otherwise, ciText data types behave exactly like Text.

The Mertech driver for PostgreSQL supports data type ciText to allow for case insensitive fields without the need for inverse key columns. Using the ciText SQL functions provides much better performance with case- insensitive data types than using inverse keys.

When you login in to a PostgreSQL server, the driver checks to see if the PostgreSQL server has ciText support enabled. If ciText support is not enabled a message displays to explain how-to enable this feature on your PostgreSQL server.

Note: Install the ciText module by running pgsql/contrib/citext/citext.sql. For later versions of PostgreSQL you may have to run the CREATE EXTENSION citext command. Refer to PostgreSQL documentation for additional information.

Important Oracle Information¶

For Oracle you must have an Oracle client installed. Our Flex2SQL Deployment Tool include an in-place OIC (Oracle Instant Client) that makes deployment easy. If you want to use your own Oracle client, make sure that the following Oracle environment variables are properly set.

• ORACLE_HOME: The top level directory that contains the database client software or the entire database installation. The driver needs the Oracle client libraries and files that are located through this environment variable. Each user must have this environment variable properly set to use the driver.

• TNS_ADMIN: The directory that contains the Oracle file tnsnames.ora, which allows calls to the Oracle database to set the required server connections.

If installing the Oracle driver using shared libraries, the library path environment variable must also be set. This variable lists the directories to search for dynamic-link libraries. We recommend that this variable it be placed in each user’s profile after the ORACLE_HOME environment variable is set. If the library path environment variable is not set, the driver will not function properly since it will not be able to find the Oracle libraries. Set the library path environment variable:

• PATH: on Windows

• LD_LIBRARY_PATH: on Linux