SQL0206N error when trying to connect HammerDB to DB2 using db2dsdriver.cfg file

Question

I'm trying to generate some data for DB2 10.5 LUW using HammerDB v3.1 which is running on a Windows remote host. There is no ability to run HammerDB on the same host with DB2. According to the HammerDB documentation I need to set up IBM Data Server Driver for ODBC and CLI.

What I did:

1. Downloaded and set up the driver on HammerDB host - v10.5fp10_ntx64_odbc_cli.zip as described here

2. Configure db2dsdriver.cfg file

<configuration>
   <dsncollection>
      <dsn alias="TPCC" name="<my database name>" host="<my host name>" port="50000"/>
      <!-- Long aliases are supported -->
      <dsn alias="longaliasname2" name="name2" host="server2.net1.com" port="55551">
         <parameter name="Authentication" value="SERVER_ENCRYPT"/>
      </dsn>
   </dsncollection>
   <databases>
      <database name="<my database name>" host="<my host name>" port="50000">
         <parameter name="CurrentSchema" value="OWNER1"/>
         .......

3. Add environment variable DB2DSDRIVER_CFG_PATH

set DB2DSDRIVER_CFG_PATH=C:\ProgramData\IBM\DB2\C_IBMDB2_CLIDRIVER_clidriver\cfg

4. Run HammerDB GUI, try to build a schema and receive

Error in Virtual User 1: [IBM][CLI Driver][DB2/LINUXX8664] SQL0206N  "GLOBAL_VAR1" is not valid in the context where it is used.  SQLSTATE=42703```

Answer 1

This error is happening because the db2dsdriver.cfg has excess information for your DSN on a Db2-client-node.

To recover, you can either rename and recreate your db2dsdriver.cfg/db2cli.ini files, or you can can edit the db2dsdriver.cfg file and remove the following stanza where it occurs for your DSN / database (take a backup as a precaution):

<sessionglobalvariables>
    <parameter name="global_var1" value="abc"/>
 </sessionglobalvariables>

I usually discard the default db2dsdriver.cfg/db2cli.ini, and use a script to populate them. This is possible by using the command line tool "db2cli", which has a variety of command lines parameters to let you write the cfg file stanzas for both DSN and databases. Documentation here.