NetBEUI connection strings
Support for NetBEUI (named pipes, a.k.a. WNET) connections was removed in Firebird 5.
Server configuration and management
Support for NetBEUI (named pipes, a.k.a. WNET) connections was removed in Firebird 5.
Please be aware that some third-party client programs may have different requirements for the composition of connection strings.Refer to their documentation or online help to find out.
A sample database named employee.fdb
is located in the examples/empbuild
subdirectory of your Firebird installation.It is also reachable under its alias employee
.You can use this database to “try your wings”.
If you move or copy the sample database, be sure to place it on a hard disk that is physically attached to your server machine.Shares, mapped drives or (on Unix) mounted SMB (Samba) file systems will not work.The same rule applies to any databases that you create or use.
Connecting to a Firebird database requires — implicit or explicit — authentication.To work with objects inside the database, such as tables, views and functions, you (i.e. the Firebird user you’re logged in as) need explicit permissions on those objects, unless you own them (you own an object if you have created it) or if you’re connected as user SYSDBA
or with the role RDB$ADMIN
.In the example database employee.fdb
, sufficient permissions have been granted to PUBLIC
(i.e. any authenticated user) to enable you to view and modify data to your heart’s content.
For simplicity here, we will look at authenticating as SYSDBA
using the password masterkey
.Also, to keep the lines in the examples from running off the right edge, we will work with local databases and use aliases wherever possible.Of course, everything you’ll learn in these sections can also be applied to remote databases, simply by supplying a TCP/IP connection string.
isql
Firebird ships with a text-mode client named isql (Interactive SQL utility).You can use it in several ways to connect to a database.One of them, shown below, is to start it in interactive mode.Go to the directory where the Firebird tools reside (see [qsg5-disk-locations] if necessary) and type isql
(Windows) or ./isql
(Linux) at the command prompt.
Note
|
In the following examples, [chevron circle left] means “hit kbd:[Enter]” |
C:\Programmas\Firebird\Firebird_3_0>isql[chevron circle left] Use CONNECT or CREATE DATABASE to specify a database SQL>connect xnet://employee user sysdba password masterkey;[chevron circle left]
Important
|
|
Note
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You can optionally enclose the path, the username and/or the password in single ( |
At this point, isql
will inform you that you are connected:
Database: xnet://employee, User: SYSDBA SQL>
You can now continue to play about with the employee
database.With isql
you can query data, get information about the metadata, create database objects, run data definition scripts and much more.
To get back to the OS command prompt, type:
SQL>quit;[chevron circle left]
You can also type EXIT
instead of QUIT
, the difference being that EXIT
will first commit any open transactions, making your modifications permanent.