--- In firebird-support@yahoogroups.com, "Woody" <woody-tmw@g...>
wrote:

> Is there a service API call, utility or component that will let a

remote application read the aliases.conf file in order to ascertain
the actual pathname of an alias? I know for security reasons that
it's not a healthy thing to do but there must be a way.

No, and if there was I woulld want it disabled by default. That said,
it is a really trivial task to create a service using some layer like
RemObjects that you could call. Look if security is such a low
requirement for you, then share the Firebird folder (read only of
course).

>
> Here's what I am trying to do. When I send an update for a program

to a client, some DDL changes might be needed. I have the program
testing for an update SQL in the program network install directory
the first time the admin runs the updated program. If it requires the
database structure to change, I want to backup the database before
making the changes. In order to do that remotely, however, I need a
path on the firebird server, not an alias. The alias will work for
the file being backed up, but the destination path must be relative
to the server, so I want to just create the backup in the same
directory as the original db.

I would check this because I don't believe it is true. You can
download the backup file to the client machine.

Adam