Hello list,

I have some really strange problems with the local
firebird setup.
We're going run firebird on a Linux Server (red-hat, 2.4.20
kernel, some Dell Xeon box), so I went through the appropriate
installation and setup steps.

First, firebird seemed to be up and running. Everything
worked fine from my box. Then, another developer tried
to connect to the database, and got an error
message. I don't have the exact error-message anymore,
but iirc it was basically "connection refused".
I thought it'd be some strange setup at this (client) box,
firewall issue or so. But a while later (yesterday)
I got exactly the same problem on another box
in the network, too (we haven't used the server for firebird
in the meantime).
Then I found out that my host is the only one able
to connect to the firebird server.

Well, here's some detail on the setup:
I'm running firebird through xinetd, which is set to
port 3050, the default port (specified in /etc/services
for gds_db).
Here's the relevant part of the xinetd configuration:

-snip-
service gds_db
{
flags = REUSE
socket_type = stream
wait = no
user = firebird
log_on_success += USERID
log_on_failure += USERID
server = /usr/local/firebird/bin/fb_inet_server
disable = no
}
-/snip-

That's all. The firebird.conf is unchanged.
Remember, from my box, it runs just fine. I really don't know
what's special about my host. I get "connection
refused" again on every other box on the network.
I've tried to put one of those hosts in /etc/hosts.allow and try it
again, without success...

I started xinetd in debug mode and checked the output; When I try
to connect from one of the unblessed machines, it doesn't even show
a incoming connection. I can see traffic for gds_db in tcpdump, though.

Honestly, I'm kinda clueless what I should try next...
I'm no network guru after all.
Help would be greatly appreciated.

regards,
Daniel Albuschat

--
eat(this); // delicious suicide