When I say 'shutdown the server' I mean the firebird server process, not
the box it resides on.
IMNSHO the shutdown command (and its aliases such as reboot) should be
restricted via the /etc/sudoers file to those belonging to an alias
called OPERATOR.

-----Original Message-----
From: firebird-support@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:firebird-support@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of The Wogster
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2006 4:48 PM
To: firebird-support@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [firebird-support] Firebird init script

Rick Debay wrote:

>> If just anyone can stop the server, then some idiot is going to shut
> it down, when the world is trying to use it.
>
> Then don't add idiots to the firebird group. No one should need root
> access in order to maintain an application.

I would suspect that there would need to be very few members of the
Firebird group anyway, for example the Firebird user and root, most
often the only way to logon as Firebird is to login from root. The only
one who would need the ability to shutdown the Firebird server is the
DBA, who either knows the root login, or can simply call the system
operator, and ask them to do it.

Most systems with 7/24 operation (that includes anything with Internet
connectivity), require a long and torturous process to just restart a
server, including booking maintenance time, heck even some much smaller
systems, require a "the system will be down from some ungodly hour
Saturday morning until some equally awful hour Monday morning for
maintenance" type memo be circulated, days or even weeks in advance of a
restart. Mainframe systems have lived with this kind of thing for
years.

Another thing, and maybe this is something people don't often think
about, is that a database is a central repository of data. Maintaining
one application can affect all other applications, and many places
require that to upgrade an application, you create a test copy of the
database, and run the application against test for a period of time,
before affecting production, the test server is often a completely
separate computer, so that if a testing application crashes the server,
the production server is not affected. I have seen where companies run
an entire month end process on a test server before accepting changes to
one application. In this case, who needs to be able to shutdown the
production server, except root.

W


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