At 04:12 AM 31/08/2006, you wrote:

>At the server there exists
>many other databases which must be kept alive.
>
>So only one database needs to be handled by a forced shutdown
>command by an my update.exe program, which calls different script-
>files.
>
>I have tried to use this command: "gfix -shut -force 2 -user
>{username} -password {db password} {dbname}". This command only
>works if I allready have started a program with an access to the
>given database - the program canø't run anymore. But the other thing
>I need to do is to prevent new programs starting up while I an doing
>the updatejob.

The engine doesn't know about
"programs". Shutting down a database prevents
any *new* transactions (-t) or attachments (-a)
during the specified timeout period. If any
existing attachments are still active after the
timeout period the shutdown lapses and you need to try again.

The -f[orce] switch shuts down the database after
the timeout period, regardless. It's an
emergency option. A timeout period of 2 seconds is a bit unrealistic though.

You have to understand that access to a shutdown
database is blocked to ordinary users, but not to
the sysdba or the owner. So a DB shutdown of any
type is useless if your applications let everyone
log in as either of these users.

If this is the way you are doing things then the
only way to keep others out will be to change the
sysdba and owner passwords before you do the
shutdown. Of course, if access to all databases
in your system is via the sysdba login, the
side-effect of this will be to lock out new
attachments to the other databases as well.

Fb 2.0 has some additional shutdown options,
including one that does block new attachments by the sysdba/owner.

./helen