New Features in Firebird 1.5

The exception that breaks the rule is the security database, formerly named “isc4.gdb”, which is now called “security.fdb”.

2.External files used by the server (UDF libraries, BLOB filters, character set libraries, external tables) are now subject to levels of filesystem protection that, in some cases, default to a level that will be different to what you had under Firebird 1.0.x or InterBase.

3.The new server configuration file, firebird.conf, that replaces ibconfig (Windows) and isc_config (other platforms) contains several new configurable features along with improved self-documentation and organisation.

4.A database-aliasing feature comes in 1.5. Now you can optionally “soft-code” the database location into your application code using your choice of alias to replace the path string. Actual path locations are stored in a text file, aliases.conf. The main purpose of aliasing, however, is to protect your physical paths from being maliciously “sniffed” on the wire.

5.The default (and past practice) on Windows server platforms makes it that the localsystem user runs the program that installs the Firebird service at system start-up. This could be a serious security vulnerability if the Firebird server should be hacked, since it provides a window through which the hacker can access the entire machine. The 1.5 version of this program (instsvc.exe) now accepts a Windows user log-on for the service installation. It is strongly recommended that you create a Firebird user for this purpose and make use of the new logon feature if your server is connected to the Internet in any way.

More Improvements

Trimming of Varchar fields for Remote Protocols

Work was resumed and completed on this tricky feature for the 1.5 client and varchars now cross the wire right-trimmed to actual length plus two bytes.

Note

As it is the client that requests the server to trim varchars, the Firebird 1.5 client (fbclient.dll or libfbclient.so) will trim, even if connected to a pre-1.5 server version. If you use an old client, you will not get trimming, even if you are connected to a 1.5 or later server.

Multi-action Trigger Semantics

Now you can write conditional insert/update/delete actions in one Before or After trigger to have the one trigger cover all DML actions for that trigger's phase. This cuts down the composition and maintenance of triggers without deprecating the ability to have multiple triggers per phase.

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