Hi All,

I am trying to get multiple instances of the FB1.5 server installed and
running together. I really need this for my application due to a requirement
to customize the aliases.conf and to provide a "no brainer" install where I
custom install the Firebird server. This is working with the following
exception.

The Problem
-----------
I need to get a second instance of the server to use a DIFFERENT
firebird.conf configuration file to the default instance. Environment is
Windows NT/2K/XP with the FB1.5 server running as a service.

Upon inspection of the source code (at least for FB2) the order of
determining the location of the firebird.conf is as follows:
1) FIREBIRD environment variable
2) HKLM\SOFTWARE\Firebird Project\Firebird Server\Instances\DefaultInstance
3) Parent directory of server exe location

Ideally what I need is a "per instance" override, something like a server
exe command line option, either:
a) Specify configuration file like: -C C:\dir\firebird.conf, or
b) Specify instance name like: -N MyInstance, where this specifies a
different registry value to check in item 2) above.

Alternatively one method would be to programmatically remove the registry
entry in 2) above and force all instances to get the configuration file from
their parent directory.

The Status
----------
I can successfully run two instances of the server if I start the
"DefaultInstance" service, manually edit the value of the DefaultInstance
registry value to point to my configuration file and then start my service
instance. To run two instances I have developed my own simple
"installservice.exe" app to name my instance of the server service (an
option that would be good to add to instsvc.exe provided with Firebird), and
used RemoteServicePort=<someuniquenumber>, RemotePipeName=<myfbpipename>,
and CreateInternalWindow=0 in firebird.conf to allow a separate server
instance.

The Question
------------
Have you been able to get two instances of the server working?
If so then how?
What is the status of the "multiple named instances" feature? This doesn't
seem to be in the upcoming FB2 release, or is it?

I need this functionality as soon as possible and I'd rather not have to
customize Firebird source and get a build working where I add the command
line params as suggested above as that would take many hours work. I have
seen other reference on this list of running multiple instances so it must
be possible somehow!

Thanks,

Jarrod Hollingworth