Subject Re: [firebird-support] Re: connecting to db on the server
Author Helen Borrie
At 07:35 14/08/2008, you wrote:
>Hi John--
>
>Again, quick on the fingers...thanks!
>
>Perfect...i set an exception for port 3050, left the firewall on and
>it's good to go.
>
>One last Q then I promise, I'm off to the bar for a beer....
>
>How did you know it was 3050? I didn't see any property like that
>in the IB_Connection?

It is not a client property. It looks as if you need to study the Firebird documentation - Quick Start Guide is a good place to start.

>Is there anything else that runs on 3050?

Nothing "runs on 3050". Port 3050 is a TCP/IP port. The Firebird server *listens* on port 3050 by default. Firebird is network software. A client polls port 3050 on the server requesting a connection.

InterBase also uses port 3050. It is possible to configure Firebird to listen on a different port if necessary - study Ch. 9 of the Firebird 1.5.5 release notes.

You can look at the Services file on the network host server to find out whether anything else is listening on port 3050. It is in ..\win32\drivers\etc. If you see an entry like
gds_db 3050/tcp #InterBase server

then there is at least the possibility that someone is running InterBase. If you check and find that it's not then just leave the entry there: the gds_db symbol is OK for Firebird. If you discover IB *is* running then you would need to make Firebird listen on a different port, e.g. 3060 if it is available. On the client, you would then add /3060 to the hostname in your application's ServerName. That said, it's not an issue for you at the moment, since opening the port was all it took for you to succeed in connecting to Firebird, at least in your current environment.

>(As you can tell, i'm no server type)

To some degree, you'll need to be. Firebird is client/server software. If you are writing clients and are responsible for deploying them then you do need to get your head around how the network works and what the various properties you use in your IB_Connection actually *mean*.

Commenting on another message of yours, forget the notion of "file server" in relation to Firebird. Firebird doesn't work in the "file server" model. Applications don't access files: they connect to and operate on *databases* through the Firebird service. Don't put databases in shares.

./heLen