>This can't be good, can it? It's a fact that the start script works
>if and only if the sysdba password starts with 'masterke'. What's
>the right way to correct this? Deleting ISC_PASSWORD
>in /etc/conf.d/
>firebird and "export ISC_PASSWORD" in the start
>script?

For sure the startup of firebird does not care about the sysdba
password. It used to be required for _stopping_ the server, but that is
not the case since 2.0. At least the 'standard' rpm binary distribution
from the firebird site doesn't need it.

One thing you can tell from the startup script is that the firebird root
directory is /usr/lib/firebird, that's where the security database is
supposed to be.

Actually it seems to me this script would be unable to _stop_ firebird
2.0 - fbmgr.bin -shut _requires_ the -user and -password switches to
stop the server.

Unfortunatley I don't know a thing about Gentoo so I can't tell you
more. And to me it looks like a gentoo-specific start/stop script issue.

Regards
Emil