--- In firebird-support@yahoogroups.com, "Dunbar, Norman" <norman.dunbar@...> wrote:
....
> default password of 'masterkey' is no longer used for sysdba.

That's true only on Linux; or at least not true on Windows. On linux the SYSDBA password is generated during install and stored in SYSDBA.password; on Windows the default sysdba password is still masterke

> The SYSDBA.password file only tells you what the password is set to. It
> doesn't change it for you.
>
> addition to the password change for the user, there are also the startup
> scripts to be changed - otherwise you may find that Firebird isn't
> running after a server restart.

For quite some time (2.0?) the linux startup scripts do not use the SYSDBA password in any way.