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In this section, we provide guides and references to use the IBM Informix connector. Configure and schedule Informix metadata and profiler workflows from the Collate UI:
This connector is available exclusively in Collate and is not part of the open-source OpenMetadata distribution.

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Requirements

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Metadata

To extract metadata, the user used in the connection needs to have access to the Informix system catalogs. By default, a user can see only the rows in the system catalogs that correspond to objects for which the user has the proper access privileges. 
-- Grant SELECT on system catalog tables
GRANT SELECT ON systables TO '<username>';
GRANT SELECT ON syscolumns TO '<username>';
GRANT SELECT ON sysviews TO '<username>';
-- Grant SELECT on stored procedures catalog
GRANT SELECT ON sysprocedures TO '<username>';

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Lineage & Usage

To extract lineage and usage, you need to enable SQL tracing in Informix and the user used in the connection needs to have SELECT access to the sysmaster:syssqltrace table. 
-- Enable SQL tracing (run as DBA)
-- Level 2 is recommended: captures DDL and DML statements
ONMODE -Y 2
-- Grant SELECT on SQL trace table
GRANT SELECT ON sysmaster:syssqltrace TO '<username>';
SQLTRACE Levels:
  • 0 — Disabled (no query capture)
  • 1 — Captures queries exceeding a threshold
  • 2 — Captures all DDL and DML statements (recommended for lineage)
  • 3 — Full trace including all queries
Note: Enabling SQL tracing at level 2 or 3 may increase disk I/O. Monitor your syssqltrace table size and periodically flush old entries using ONMODE -Y 0 to disable, truncate, then re-enable. You can check the current SQLTRACE status by running: 
SELECT * FROM sysmaster:syssqltrace LIMIT 1;
Best Practices:
  • Use SQLTRACE level 2 for a balance of coverage and performance
  • Periodically flush the syssqltrace table after successful lineage/usage extraction
  • Keep SQLTRACE enabled only as long as needed if performance impact is a concern

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Profiler & Data Quality

Executing the profiler workflow or data quality tests will require the user to have SELECT permission on the tables/schemas where the profiler/tests will be executed. More information on the profiler workflow setup can be found here and data quality tests here.

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Metadata Ingestion

1

Connection Details

  • Username: Specify the User to connect to Informix. It should have enough privileges to read all the metadata.
  • Password: Password to connect to Informix.
  • Host and Port: Enter the fully qualified hostname and port number for your Informix deployment in the Host and Port field. For example: localhost:9088. If you are running ingestion inside Docker and your Informix instance is on the host machine, use host.docker.internal:9088.
  • Database: The name of the Informix database to connect to. This is a required field.
  • Server Name: The Informix server name as defined in the sqlhosts file or the INFORMIXSERVER environment variable. This identifies the specific Informix server instance to connect to. For example: informix.
  • Ingest All Databases: Enable this toggle to ingest metadata from all databases on the Informix server. When disabled (default), only the database specified above will be ingested. You can use databaseFilterPattern on top of this setting to further filter databases.
  • SSL Mode: Choose the SSL mode for the connection:
    • disable — No SSL encryption; the connection is unencrypted (default).
    • allow — Uses SSL if the server requires it, otherwise connects without SSL.
    • prefer — Prefers SSL but falls back to unencrypted if the server does not support it.
    • require — Enforces SSL encryption but does not verify the server certificate.
    • verify-ca — Enforces SSL and validates the server certificate against the provided CA certificate.
    • verify-full — Enforces SSL, validates the server certificate, and verifies the hostname.
  • SSL Configuration: SSL configuration details. Provide the CA certificate to validate the Informix server certificate. You can paste the PEM content directly or upload the certificate file. This is required when SSL Mode is set to verify-ca or verify-full.
    • CA Certificate: The CA certificate used for SSL validation.
    • SSL Certificate: The SSL certificate used for client authentication (for mutual TLS).
    • SSL Key: The private key associated with the SSL certificate (for mutual TLS).
2

Advanced Configuration

Database Services have an Advanced Configuration section, where you can pass extra arguments to the connector and, if needed, change the connection Scheme.This would only be required to handle advanced connectivity scenarios or customizations.
  • Connection Options (Optional): Enter the details for any additional connection options that can be sent to database during the connection. These details must be added as Key-Value pairs.
  • Connection Arguments (Optional): Enter the details for any additional connection arguments such as security or protocol configs that can be sent during the connection. These details must be added as Key-Value pairs. Advanced Configuration
3

Test the Connection

Once the credentials have been added, click on Test Connection and Save the changes.Test Connection
4

Configure Metadata Ingestion

In this step we will configure the metadata ingestion pipeline, Please follow the instructions belowConfigure Metadata IngestionConfigure Metadata Ingestion

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Metadata Ingestion Options

If the owner’s name is openmetadata, you need to enter openmetadata@domain.com in the name section of add team/user form, click here for more info.
  • Name: This field refers to the name of ingestion pipeline, you can customize the name or use the generated name.
  • Database Filter Pattern (Optional): Use to database filter patterns to control whether or not to include database as part of metadata ingestion.
    • Include: Explicitly include databases by adding a list of comma-separated regular expressions to the Include field. OpenMetadata will include all databases with names matching one or more of the supplied regular expressions. All other databases will be excluded.
    • Exclude: Explicitly exclude databases by adding a list of comma-separated regular expressions to the Exclude field. OpenMetadata will exclude all databases with names matching one or more of the supplied regular expressions. All other databases will be included.
  • Schema Filter Pattern (Optional): Use to schema filter patterns to control whether to include schemas as part of metadata ingestion.
    • Include: Explicitly include schemas by adding a list of comma-separated regular expressions to the Include field. OpenMetadata will include all schemas with names matching one or more of the supplied regular expressions. All other schemas will be excluded.
    • Exclude: Explicitly exclude schemas by adding a list of comma-separated regular expressions to the Exclude field. OpenMetadata will exclude all schemas with names matching one or more of the supplied regular expressions. All other schemas will be included.
  • Table Filter Pattern (Optional): Use to table filter patterns to control whether to include tables as part of metadata ingestion.
    • Include: Explicitly include tables by adding a list of comma-separated regular expressions to the Include field. OpenMetadata will include all tables with names matching one or more of the supplied regular expressions. All other tables will be excluded.
    • Exclude: Explicitly exclude tables by adding a list of comma-separated regular expressions to the Exclude field. OpenMetadata will exclude all tables with names matching one or more of the supplied regular expressions. All other tables will be included.
  • Enable Debug Log (toggle): Set the Enable Debug Log toggle to set the default log level to debug.
  • Mark Deleted Tables (toggle): Set the Mark Deleted Tables toggle to flag tables as soft-deleted if they are not present anymore in the source system.
  • Mark Deleted Tables from Filter Only (toggle): Set the Mark Deleted Tables from Filter Only toggle to flag tables as soft-deleted if they are not present anymore within the filtered schema or database only. This flag is useful when you have more than one ingestion pipelines. For example if you have a schema
  • includeTables (toggle): Optional configuration to turn off fetching metadata for tables.
  • includeViews (toggle): Set the Include views toggle to control whether to include views as part of metadata ingestion.
  • includeTags (toggle): Set the ‘Include Tags’ toggle to control whether to include tags as part of metadata ingestion.
  • includeOwners (toggle): Set the ‘Include Owners’ toggle to control whether to include owners to the ingested entity if the owner email matches with a user stored in the OM server as part of metadata ingestion. If the ingested entity already exists and has an owner, the owner will not be overwritten.
  • includeStoredProcedures (toggle): Optional configuration to toggle the Stored Procedures ingestion.
  • includeDDL (toggle): Optional configuration to toggle the DDL Statements ingestion.
  • queryLogDuration (Optional): Configuration to tune how far we want to look back in query logs to process Stored Procedures results.
  • queryParsingTimeoutLimit (Optional): Configuration to set the timeout for parsing the query in seconds.
  • useFqnForFiltering (toggle): Regex will be applied on fully qualified name (e.g service_name.db_name.schema_name.table_name) instead of raw name (e.g. table_name).
  • Incremental (Beta): Use Incremental Metadata Extraction after the first execution. This is done by getting the changed tables instead of all of them. Only Available for BigQuery, Redshift and Snowflake
    • Enabled: If True, enables Metadata Extraction to be Incremental.
    • lookback Days: Number of days to search back for a successful pipeline run. The timestamp of the last found successful pipeline run will be used as a base to search for updated entities.
    • Safety Margin Days: Number of days to add to the last successful pipeline run timestamp to search for updated entities.
  • Threads (Beta): Use a Multithread approach for Metadata Extraction. You can define here the number of threads you would like to run concurrently.
Note that the right-hand side panel in the Collate UI will also share useful documentation when configuring the ingestion.
5

Schedule the Ingestion and Deploy

Scheduling can be set up at an hourly, daily, weekly, or manual cadence. The timezone is in UTC. Select a Start Date to schedule for ingestion. It is optional to add an End Date.Review your configuration settings. If they match what you intended, click Deploy to create the service and schedule metadata ingestion.If something doesn’t look right, click the Back button to return to the appropriate step and change the settings as needed.After configuring the workflow, you can click on Deploy to create the pipeline.Schedule the Workflow
6

View the Ingestion Pipeline

Once the workflow has been successfully deployed, you can view the Ingestion Pipeline running from the Service Page.View Ingestion Pipeline
If AutoPilot is enabled, workflows like usage tracking, data lineage, and similar tasks will be handled automatically. Users don’t need to set up or manage them - AutoPilot takes care of everything in the system.

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Securing Informix Connection with SSL in Collate

To establish secure connections between Collate and Informix, first set the SSL Mode in the connection form, then navigate to the SSL Configuration section. The SSL mode controls how the connection is encrypted and whether certificates are verified:
  • For require mode: SSL encryption is enforced but the server certificate is not validated. No certificate configuration is needed.
  • For verify-ca mode: SSL encryption is enforced and the server certificate is validated against the provided CA certificate. Provide the caCertificate in the SSL Configuration section.
  • For mutual TLS (client and server authentication): Provide all three parameters — caCertificate (CA certificate to validate the server), sslCertificate (client SSL certificate), and sslKey (private key for the client certificate).
SSL Configuration

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Troubleshooting

Informix Troubleshooting

Learn more about how to troubleshoot common Informix connector issues and resolve configuration or ingestion errors.

Usage Workflow

Learn more about how to configure the Usage Workflow to ingest Query information from the UI.

Lineage Workflow

Learn more about how to configure the Lineage from the UI.

Profiler Workflow

Learn more about how to configure the Data Profiler from the UI.

Data Quality Workflow

Learn more about how to configure the Data Quality tests from the UI.

dbt Integration

Learn more about how to ingest dbt models’ definitions and their lineage.