>> Why: developers/end users can more easily choose and connect >> to a database on a Firebird server, even point and click.
> Point and click should be implemented by client, not by server. I cannot speak for the original author, but it seems to me the one BIG advantage of offering aliases.conf via a system table (even if limited to RDB$ADMIN) is the ability to let Firebird take care of the network connection/transfer aspects. That is: At the moment maintenance of aliases.conf (and Firebird.conf) must necessarily take place outside Firebird. If access were offered via system tables then Firebird is able to use existing authentication and connection facilities that the developer can take advantage of to then offer point and click to administrative users. That is: a developer need only learn one API to maintain their server, regardless of what operating system the server runs on. This is quite a big plus from a developer's perspective: one interface and set of instructions to offer the user, however installed. Certainly access to such a feature would need to be very carefully controlled. The current system of offering no access at all is quite secure - or at least secure from the point of view of Firebird, what the implementers may end up doing to work around the limitation (eg: sharing the program folder so remote administrators can access the files) is something quite different, but from Firebird's perspective that is SEP (Someone Else's Problem). So I can see the advantages of the suggestion. -- Geoff Worboys Telesis Computing ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Forrester Wave Report - Recovery time is now measured in hours and minutes not days. Key insights are discussed in the 2010 Forrester Wave Report as part of an in-depth evaluation of disaster recovery service providers. Forrester found the best-in-class provider in terms of services and vision. Read this report now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/ibm-webcastpromo Firebird-Devel mailing list, web interface at https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-devel
