Firebird 1.0.2 FreeBSD Release Notes 05-Jan-2003 -------------------------------------- FB-T6.2.908 Firebird Final Release Welcome to the FreeBSD Firebird port! Users should note that there was a package called `firebird-1.0.tgz' released in mid-August 2000. Unfortunately, that package was released before Firebird version numbering conventions were established, so although the version number would suggest that it is newer than the current release, it is certainly not. Users of the August 1.0 package should upgrade to 0.9_4 or later, which has fixed many bugs and security problems, including the recently-discovered back door. Firebird originally required a running copy of Firebird (or InterBase) in order to build itself. This port uses a boot kit to overcome that, so that it does not require itself to build. Unfortunately, the side effect of this is that if you have a lock manager running from an already-installed version of Firebird or InterBase, this port will not build. Firebird is installed SUID with owner and group `firebird'. This does affect where you can and cannot create databases when connecting remotely, as well as which existing databases you can access. If you want a database to be available remotely, be sure it's readable and writeable to group firebird. There may be times when you manage to get your system into a state where using any of the Firebird utilites (isql, gbak, gsec, etc.) gives you the message "semget failed". One surefire way to do this is to build and install the port. :) If this happens, make sure that the lock manager is not running and its semaphores have been removed. The former can be accomplished with 'ps ax |grep gds' and 'kill'; the latter with 'ipcs -s' and 'ipcrm -s'. For example, after building and installing the port, you will probably go through something like this: # isql /usr/interbase/isc4.gdb Statement failed, SQLCODE = -902 operating system directive semget failed -No such file or directory # ipcs -s Semaphores: T ID KEY MODE OWNER GROUP s 1310720 252034728 --rw-rw-rw- root wheel # ipcrm -s 1310720 and you should be in business. Once this is done, you should be able to connect normally to databases. Your first connection will restart the lock manager. There may be times, however, when you still get "semget failed" even though the lock manager is not running and the semaphores have been cleaned up. There seems to be a conflict with this release and the PostgreSQL 7 release as installed from the ports collection. If you're having trouble with Firebird and you're running PostgreSQL, try stopping PostgreSQL: /usr/local/etc/rc.d/pgsql.sh stop and see if that helps. Super Server support has recently been added. However, there is anecdotal evidence that it is not as reliable nor as scalable as the Classic Server version. For this reason, I have not included a start up method for Super Server. For those that are interested, traversing to /usr/interbase/misc will find the startup scripts for the various flavours of Linux. Complete documentation for InterBase(tm) is available (free of charge) from http://www.interbase.com/ in PDF format. While InterBase and Firebird are two distinct entities, all InterBase documentation is pertinent to Firebird. More information on Firebird and InterBase can be found at the following: http://sourceforge.net/projects/firebird/ http://www.ibphoenix.com/ http://www.interbase2000.org/ http://www.firebirdsql.org/ Chris Knight