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Exploring the ODBC Services Console

To use the console, open that configuration page and click the button in the centre, labelled btn:[Services]:

fb odbc ClickServices
Figure 1. Launching the Services UI on Windows

The console is a tabbed display providing access to many of the Services API functions, with the menu:Backup[] tab on top.

fb odbc Backup
Figure 2. Firebird ODBC Services console — Backup tab
fb odbc Restore
Figure 3. Restore tab
fb odbc Statistics
Figure 4. Statistics tab

We selected menu:Header pages[], which produced the gstat -h report for our database.Clicking on the btn:[View Log] button delivers the output to the browser:

fb odbc StatisticsLog
Figure 5. Statistics log

Of course, you can have any statistics report, the Firebird log, metadata reports and more.

The menu:Repair[] tab gives easy access to most of the gfix housekeeping functions:

fb odbc Repair
Figure 6. Repair tab

The menu:Users[] tab could be used to maintain accounts in the security database of any version of Firebird prior to version 3.0, although the Services API method was discouraged from V.2.5 onward.The Services API method is still available to maintain users in Firebird 3 databases if they were defined using Legacy_Auth authentication management.It will not work with users defined with the default SRP authentication manager.

fb odbc Users
Figure 7. Users tab

Click on the appropriate button to add, modify or delete a user.Remember, the user performing these tasks must be SYSDBA or a user with elevated server privileges.The role RDB$ADMIN is not sufficiently elevated.

fb odbc AddUser
Figure 8. Add user
fb odbc ModifyUser
Figure 9. Modify user
fb odbc DeleteUser
Figure 10. Delete user

Showing Logs from the Interface

If a log file is available from the execution of a Service API function, the btn:[View Log] button will become active.The UI provides it on demand in HTML format and opens it in your default browser.If you wonder how to go about coding this into your own ODBC application, the source code is a resource that is freely available to you.

Using the Services API

The ODBC/JDBC driver wraps a great many of the Services API functions.The management console built into the Windows DSN interface provides examples of most of them.One thing you cannot do via the console is create databases.Fear not! the driver has it wrapped!

In the Connection chapter is a table of the keywords available to signify the values for attachments via Firebird’s “regular” API.The table below provides the keywords for the KEYWORD=value parameters for connecting to the server and launching a service request.These are additional to the relevant connection parameters.For some cases, the default settings from the DSN, if used, will be correct for Service requests.

Table 1. Keywords for Service Request Attributes
Keyword Description More Information

BACKUPFILE

Backup file

This is a filesystem path and file name.Unlike a database, a backup path can be a network storage address.

LOGFILE

Path and name of the log file for the service

Optional;valid for any service that provides a log file option.The same filesystem rules apply as for backup files.

CREATE_DB

Create database

See the examples below for usage

BACKUP_DB

Backup database

The path and name of the database backup file, for backups and restores.

RESTORE_DB

The network path and name of the database to which a backup is to be restored.This cannot be a network storage address.The file name part can be an alias, provided the alias exists.

 

REPAIR_DB

Repair database

Local path to the database to be repaired or validated.Remote access is invalid.

COMPACT_DB

Compact database

Not currently applicable to Firebird databases.

DROP_DB

Drop database

Not currently applicable to Firebird databases.

Examples of Services Use

The following samples show how to configure the various service requests.

Creating a Database
SQLConfigDataSource( NULL,
                     ODBC_ADD_DSN,
                     "Firebird/InterBase(r) driver",
                     "ODBC\0"
                     "CREATE_DB = D:\\TestService\\test.fdb\0"
                     "DESCRIPTION = My Firebird database\0"
                     "UID         = SYSDBA\0"
                     "PWD         = masterkey\0"
                     "CHARSET     = NONE\0"
                     "PAGESIZE    = 8192\0"
                     "DIALECT     = 3\0" );

More alternative examples for creating databases are at the end of this chapter.

Backing Up a Database
SQLConfigDataSource( NULL,
                     ODBC_ADD_DSN,
                     "Firebird/InterBase(r) driver",
                     "ODBC\0"
                     "BACKUP_DB = D:\\TestService\\test.fdb\0"
                     "BACKUPFILE = D:\\TestService\\test.fbk\0"
                     "UID         = SYSDBA\0"
                     "PWD         = masterkey\0" );
Restoring a Database
SQLConfigDataSource( NULL,
                     ODBC_ADD_DSN,
                     "Firebird/InterBase(r) driver",
                     "ODBC\0"
                     "RESTORE_DB = D:\\TestService\\testNew.fdb\0"
                     "BACKUPFILE = D:\\TestService\\test.fbk\0"
                     "LOGFILE = D:\\TestService\\test.log\0"
                     "UID         = SYSDBA\0"
                     "PWD         = masterkey\0" );
Repairing a Database
SQLConfigDataSource( NULL,
                     ODBC_ADD_DSN,
                     "Firebird/InterBase(r) driver",
                     "ODBC\0"
                     "REPAIR_DB = D:\\TestService\\test.fdb\0"
                     "UID         = SYSDBA\0"
                     "PWD         = masterkey\0" );