homerjones1941 skriver:

> My customers are insurance agents who are independent business owners.
> They typically do not have an IT department, although some hire a local
> tech as needed. When agents buy my product, they either download the
> installation program or install from a CD that we ship (we ship one even
> if they download). Since many of our customers are located thousands of
> miles from us, it would be a very rare occasion where our company would
> actually install the software for them. Naturally, we have had to create
> a pretty smart installation program that, based on user interaction,
> will install 1: the program and Access database (stand-alone or
> peer-to-peer server), or 2: the program only, and then prompt for the
> data path via a separate app we distribute. We've been doing this for
> 15+ years, and it is rare for us to do anything beyond answering an
> occasional question. Of course, we do have a detailed user manual with
> step-by-step instructions, including screen images.
>
> I consider the installation to be part of
> my application. As such, it should be just as intuitive as the
> application itself.
>
> I fancy myself as being pretty good at designing user interfaces that
> can minimize user errors. I've been programming since the 60's and have
> adopted the position that computer should work for people, people should
> not have to work for computers. The people I'm talking about are the end
> users. Naturally, that means the guy programming the computer (in this
> case, me) needs to expend a good deal of effort so that the end user
> doesn't need to. I guess that's the real stimulus for my original question.

This is a very good ambition, but perhaps it isn't possible in all
situations.

I can't really answer what can and can't be done with the stock FB
installer - I don't know it well enough.

But I'd like to summarize the problems I see that need to be solved by
your setup somehow.

1. If it's a single user install, just install embedded FB. This could
be a simple option in the installer. You still have *some* single user
sites i would assume?

2. For multi user installs, you need a full server install. You should
probably separate server and client installs, because it would seem rare
that the server would also be used as a client. So, three initial
options: 1. Single user (embedded) 2. Multi user server with no client
3. Multi user client, assumes server already installed "somewhere".

3. For multi user client install, simply ask for the hostname/IP address
and port. That's it. Unless you want a secure tunnel like Zebedee as
well. I'm going to assume this is not in the picture.

For multi user server install, we have a number of problems:

4. The server already has a FB server installed.

4a. If the architecture (SS, CS or SC) and version matches yours, you
could just skip FB server installation and use the existing server.
There is a risk with this. The existing server is probably installed as
part of some other software package, and when that package is upgraded
and includes a FB server upgrade, "your" server will also be upgraded.
Might cause problems for your software.

4b. If the existing server doesn't match your requirements, you'll have
to install your own FB server alongside the existing one. This is also
the case if you feel that the risks of using an existing server is too
high (4a). Installing your separate server will require you to install
to a separate directory and specify a different port. I'm not sure if
your installer can find out the existing server's port, but I think it
should be possible, by examining the existing firebird.conf at least.
You'd have to make sure the new port is not blocked by a firewall. This
gives you full control over your server so should be rather problem free.

4c. Backups. You will need some kind of backup scheme. If this is to be
part of the server install, I don't know. Only you can decide that. And
it's not a problem specific to FB either. Same goes for Access. The
requirements for how backups are made is a bit different though. Decide
if you want to use gbak or nbackup. Make sure the licensee understands
the dos and don'ts.

4d. Make sure the user understands security aspects. E.g. you may want
to have the FB server run under a specific user account, with limited
access to the host's system - allowing access only to those folders and
other resources that it requires to run. Also, there are some
firebird.conf settings that you should set to lock down the server
process to only those folders where you have UDF:s, databases etc.

I've probably missed some aspects but I think this covers most of it.

Good luck!
Kjell Rilbe
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Kjell Rilbe
DataDIA AB
E-post: kjell@...
Telefon: 08-761 06 55
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