June 19 2010

Informix err -951 troubleshoot unknown remote host

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Background:

I believe most of Informix users are familiar with  err -951 which sample shown belows from Informix message logs. Similar error messages are repeating frequently within a second, these will fill up the message logs file and filesystem.

#– Informix message logs –#

10:22:45  listener-thread: err = -951: oserr = 0: errstr = jsmith:
Incorrect password or user jsmith is not known on the database server.
10:22:45  listener-thread: err = -951: oserr = 0: errstr = jsmith:
Incorrect password or user jsmith is not known on the database server.

The error messages description clearly shows that there are possibilities on,

(1) Userid “jsmith”  connect with invalid password or account is locked.

(2) Userid “jsmith” is unknown or not found on database server (not found in /etc/passwd entry).

For my case, it is (2), no userid “jsmaith” found in database host.

The challenge for DBA is to find out which is remote client host attempting an invalid userid connection. Obviously, Informix message logs does not provide remote client host information.