Question:
How to connect to a remote Firebird
server using FIBPlus?
Answer:
We will demonstrate this using a server called acmeserver
and a
database file called employee.fdb.
The application has to be deployed
to several users that will access the server across a network. Here's
how to do this with Firebird 1.5/2.0 and FIBPlus:
STEP 1: CONFIGURE THE FIREBIRD SERVER
- On the server where Firebird
is installed you should navigate to the
directory where Firebird is installed.
- Open file called
"aliases.conf" (use notepad to do this)
- The alises.conf file
contains aliases (shortnames) to where a database
is located. So we have to add an entry for the employee database so
that application can use this alias to connect to it across the
network. There are two parts to every entry in the alises.conf file:
<alias>=<db location and name>
Add the line:
EmployDB=C:\Program
files\Firebird\dbs\employee.fdb
- Save the file. Notice that
Firebird should be restarted; the alias is
picked up instantaneously.
- You can add as many aliases
as you want for the database and as many
entries as you want for any number of databases.
STEP 2: CONFIGURE FIBPlus TpFIBDataBase COMPONENT:
- Open up the database editor
by double clicking on the TpFIBDataBase
component
- Click on "Remote Server".
This means that we will be accessing the
database from the network.
- Make sure that "TCP/IP" is
selected for the network protocol.
- Select the
database alias which you want to use in the
editbox next to the database type in the database. In this case
it's EmpoyDB.
- Type the user name in the
database. In this case it's SYSDBA.
- Type the password in the
database. In this case we use masterkey.
- Ensure that 3 is selected in
SQL Dialect .
- Always ensure that the
client library points to a valid client library.