Installation Notes

Table of Contents

Linux (POSIX)
Windows

Warning re Databases Created or Restored under Firebird 2.5.1

All users upgrading from Firebird 2.5.1 to a higher sub-release are strongly advised to migrate databases using gbak backup/restore. If this is impracticable, at least rebuild all compound indices in the databases being migrated.

Databases being upgraded from older Firebird versions (ODS 11.1 and lower) or v.2.5.0 are not affected by this regression.

Installation And Migration Guide

The latest version of Installation and Migration Guide for Firebird versions 2.0.x and 2.1.x is still applicable to the v.2.5 series. If a copy of this document is not present in your /doc/ directory, you can download it from the Firebird website.

Some improvements have been done to solve issues that could arise with the binary installation packages.

Linux (POSIX)

Installation Scripts Cleanup
Dedicated Firebird Switches for 'configure'
Detection of Path to Firebird's Binaries

The following improvements apply to POSIX installations.

Installation Scripts Cleanup

Alex Peshkov

(CORE-2195): the Linux Classic installation scripts were reviewed to improve the assignment of ownership and access rights to documentation and other components.
(CORE-2392): Cleanups of installation scripts for all active POSIX ports for Superserver and Superclassic were done to address a problem with the Guardian on these platforms.
(CORE-2626): The startup scripts in /etc/init.d did not previously take into account the presence of the directories /var/run/firebird and /tmp/firebird on the host system. Various types of startup failures were traceable back to this deficiency.

The startup scripts distributed with the V.2.5 and later builds address and solve the problem.
(v.2.5.1 CORE-3467): A silent install switch ( -silent ) was added to make install to enable a simpler installation and the ability to automate a build and tests run. With this switch, Firebird is installed without any prompts, generating a random password for SYSDBA. The random password is saved in a file at the same location as the security database, security2.fdb.

Dedicated Firebird Switches for 'configure'

Alex Peshkov

A lot of the standard configure switches for fine-tuning the installation directories on POSIX platforms do not work for Firebird.

It was close to impossible to make the standard GNU switches work without changing the defaults for them, a rigmarole that is far from obvious or easy. Instead, a set of new switches for the configure has been added to enable fine-level configuration of the locations of Firebird's files.

The ib_util loader was also improved to make the engine work correctly with the configured layout.

Available Switches

  --with-fbbin executables DIR (PREFIX/bin)
  --with-fbsbin system admin executables DIR (PREFIX/bin)
  --with-fbconf config files DIR (PREFIX)
  --with-fblib object code libraries DIR (PREFIX/lib)
  --with-fbinclude C/C++ header files DIR (PREFIXinclude)
  --with-fbdoc documentation root DIR (PREFIX/doc)
  --with-fbudf UDF DIR (PREFIX/UDF)
  --with-fbsample examples DIR (PREFIX/examples)
  --with-fbsample-db examples database DIR (PREFIX/examples/empbuild)
  --with-fbhelp QLI help DIR (PREFIX/help)
  --with-fbintl international DIR (PREFIX/intl)
  --with-fbmisc misc DIR (PREFIX/misc)
  --with-fbsecure-db security database DIR (PREFIX)
  --with-fbmsg message files DIR (PREFIX)
  --with-fblog log files DIR (PREFIX)
  --with-fbglock guardian lock DIR (PREFIX)
  --with-fbplugins plugins DIR (PREFIX)

Detection of Path to Firebird's Binaries

Adriano dos Santos Fernandes

Tracker reference: CORE-2398)

A feature has been implemented for POSIX builds, to have Firebird correctly detect the path where its binaries are installed.

Important

This is an experimental state currently and is disabled in the distributed binaries. To activate it, build Firebird from source and pass --enable-binreloc to autogen.sh when building.