In response to the Subject of this thread - No, that is true, you can't
connect to [a database] on a network drive.

At 06:06 PM 24/02/2005 +0000, you wrote:

>I have an app that uses Firebird 1.5. there is a setting for the
>location of the gdb file in the registry. When I change the path to a
>network drive I get the error message :
>
>Unable to complete network request to host "127.0.0.1".
>Failed to establish a connection.
>No connection could be made because the target machine actively
>refused it.

Quite right and proper behaviour. The path to the database MUST be an
absolute path to the file. (In Firebird 1.5 you can - and should - use
aliases.)

>How can I get to read the gdb file on the network drive?

You can't. A Firebird database consists of a logical on-disk structure of
one or more blocks of physical space. Clients connect to the database as
network clients, not as file-sharers of an OS-dependent filesystem.

>I have
>confirmed that the file exists in the specified path and that the
>drive mapping is accurate.

That's good. Use the server's host name and the absolute path as seen from
the host machine. Given that your exception cited 'localhost' as the host
name, I assume your client is local. Therefore, to connect to the employee
database (for example) on Windows, you have two choices of connection string.

1) for a tcp/ip connection:

localhost:c:\Program Files\Firebird\Firebird_1_5\examples\employee.fdb

2) for an IPServer connection:

c:\Program Files\Firebird\Firebird_1_5\examples\employee.fdb

From a remote client, you have two choices (of which a local connection of
any kind is not one): tcp/ip (recommended) or Named Pipes (less
recommended, because it's noisy).

Assuming the hostname of the server is DBServer:

tcp/ip:

DBServer:c:\Program Files\Firebird\Firebird_1_5\examples\employee.fdb

Named Pipes (also sometimes mistakenly known as NetBEUI):

\\DBServer\c:\Program Files\Firebird\Firebird_1_5\examples\employee.fdb

In Fb. 1.5 you can (and should) alias your databases. In aliases.conf:

emp = c:\Program Files\Firebird\Firebird_1_5\examples\employee.fdb

Then, to connect:

tcp/ip:

DBServer:emp

Named Pipes:

\\DBServer\emp

>Please help

Have you considered downloading the Quick Start Guide from the Novices area
at http://firebird.sourceforge.net ?

./heLen