--- In firebird-support@yahoogroups.com, "Ira Berkowitz" <iranyc@...>
wrote:

>
> When I access firebird over my LAN I use:
> 192.168.1.201:c:\mydata\resource.gdb
>
> What is the proper way to access firebird over a WAN. For instance,
> the firebird server is in NYC and I want to access the database from a
> pc in San Francisco. The ip address of the New York router is
> 162.83.141.186.

^^
I hope you made that number up, because this is a public list.

>
> I tried:
> 162.38.141.186:3050\c:\mydata\resource.gdb and
> 162.38.141.186:c:\mydata\resource.gdb, neither of which work.

Both of these will tell your client to connect to port 3050 on the
machine 162.38.141.186. That is not going to help you too much if that
is your router. You would need to port forward 3050 from the router to
your database server. That is the simple solution, but least
preferable, because

* Data (other than passwords) are transmitted unencrypted across the
internet.
* Data is not compressed.
* You need to do a lot more work if you use 'events' with forwarding
at the client end and remoteauxport configuration.

>
> What is the preferred way to address the firebird database on a
> remoter server.

n-tier application

Design your application with a data abstraction layer and business
rule layer that lives on the server, and only what is necessary for
the UI needs to be transmitted. There are many packages that can be
used to do this depending on your environment.

vpn

A vpn allows you to address the remote server as if it were on the
same LAN, with all traffic compressed and encrypted. Every modern OS
has a way of handling these.

Secure tunnel

A point to point encrypted tunnel such as Zebedee allows you to
compress and encrypt traffic whilst making it not too much more tricky
than a straight port forward.

Adam

PS: Don't give your database a .gdb extension. Use something else.
.fdb is a common one. Also, use aliases rather than a direct pathname
at the client end.