For those who might be interested (in a solution to the gds_db problem):

At 2:18 +0000 10.4.2001, you, chip@... wrote:

>--- In ib-support@y..., "Paul Schmidt" <paul@t...> wrote:
> > You need to make sure that the Win98 machine also has and entry in
>> the services file for gds_db.
>
>Thanks to everyone for suggestions, and to Paul Schmidt for the
>solution. I put a line for the gds_db service in the Win98 SERVICES
>file and everything works great.

This is a very common problem, this missing gds_db entry. As long as
you have write access to the "services" file (X:\windows\services on
Win98, X:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\services on WinNT/2000), the
missing entry can be added manually (or programmatically by the client app).

However, this fails for non-admin users on NT/2000, they don't have write
privilege to "services".

For those who have a need for zero-installation clients or some other
reason to wish they could run IB/FB clients on machines WITHOUT the
services entry, there's now a solution!

Thanks to help from many of the IB gurus a tiny modification was added
to firebird which now uses a hardcoded default for gds_db, so even
if the services file does not have the gds_db entry, IB clients will work.

In addition, the port name or port number can be specified in the
connection string (this has been in place for a few years now,
but did not work until now with port numbers (only names) under Windows:

servername/portname:D:\path\to\my\db.gdb or
servername/1234:D:\path\to\my\db.gdb (1234=port number)

So

servername/gds_db:D:\path\to\my\db.gdb is equivalent to
servername/3050:D:\path\to\my\db.gdb and equivalent to
servername:D:\path\to\my\db.gdb

This change will appear in the next firebird release. For those who
want to test this, please contact me by e-mail, I have a preliminary
gds32.dll (no official release, but works) for testing available.

Lukas Zeller (luz@...)
--
Synthesis AG, Sustainable Software Concepts
info@..., http://www.synthesis.ch