At 04:19 PM 16/04/2004 +0000, you wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I am having trouble using external tables on a red hat linux 9
>machine. I am using firebird 1.5 classic final release.
>
>I have edited the firebird.conf to allow external file access:
> ExternalFileAccess = Full

Did you start a new connection after editing firebird.conf

btw, it's not true that the file has to pre-exist. If it doesn't exist, it
gets created. Problem here is one of two things is stopping that, either
1. User firebird doesn't have the permissions
2. The OS user you are logged in as doesn't have the permissions
or
3. The default EFA NONE is still in sway because you're still in the same
instance of the server that you were in before you edited firebird.conf

>I log on as SYSDBA, connect to the database alias, and try to create
>the external table:
> create table broadext
> EXTERNAL FILE '/home/listpi/junk/broad.ext' (
> BROADID INTEGER NOT NULL
> , ACCOUNTID INTEGER NOT NULL
> , SENDDATE TIMESTAMP NOT NULL
> , MESSAGEID INTEGER NOT NULL
> , SENDCOUNT INTEGER
> , BROADSTAT VARCHAR( 10 ) NOT NULL
> , BROADTYPE CHAR( 1 ) NOT NULL
> , TARGETDOC BLOB( 65535, 1 ) NOT NULL
> );
>
>
>But I get the error:
> Statement failed, SQLCODE = -902
> I/O error for file "/home/listpi/junk/broad.ext"
> -Error while trying to open file
> -Permission denied
>
>I have made the /home/listpi/junk directory owned by the firebird
>user and for good measure give everyone complete read/write/execute
>permissions.

Does the user **firebird** have rwx on the directory where you are writing
the file?

>Am I missing something?

/hb