I tried gsec -user sysdba -pass masterke (without the quotes) and was still
unable to get in, but it is not Firebird's fault. I hope the details I
provide will help others avoid this.

 

My friend has a small office with 5 Windows XP machines on a LAN. One
machine is the "server". The two Firebird services, Guardian and Firebird,
run on this machine. The Firebird database file is located on this machine.
He has a commercial software application that is basically a Windows
front-end to the Firebird database.

 

My friend wants to write his own reports based on the Firebird data, but the
company that created the application has changed the SYSDBA password, as
they should, of course, but he just wants to dump his own data into Excel.

 

Ethical dilemma? Perhaps, but I feel that he owns his own data. Whatever -
subject for another discussion.

 

So I agreed to help him and, being too clever for my own good, said, "what
if we install Firebird on one of your work stations and MAKE A COPY of your
production database to a local drive." Heck, they even have this super-cool
thing called FlameBird, which lets you export to a tab-delimited file and
then import that into Excel.

 

First, I installed version 2.54 on the work station. Then I made a local
copy of the production database. Then I tried to open the database with
FlameRobin using sysdba and masterke. No dice!

 

Here is where I kind of lost track. I tried gsec and isql and thought I
carefully followed the syntax rules (quotes for isql, no quotes for gsec).
No dice. So I went home and a few hours later joined this group and posted
my first question. Turns out my memory was a bit foggy and the question was
wrong, hence the confusion.

 

Here is what I did today:

 

First, I figured the problem was that somehow I messed up security2.fdb by
trying to open up a database file from a password-protected system with the
wrong password. So I uninstalled Firebird 2.54, deleted security2.fdb
(because the uninstall program does not delete it), and re-installed
Firebird. Then IMMEDIATELY AFTER INSTALLING I ran gsec and logged in as
sysdba/masterke. Only then did I attempt to open the database file
(remember, this is a copy) and I used isql instead of FlameRobin, making
sure I used the correct syntax.

 

Almost there.

 

This time, I did not get a "User name or password not defined" error, I got
an error complaining about the database version.  So.

 

I downloaded and installed Firebird 2.1 and followed the same steps as
above.

 

Turns out they use a 2.0 database, which opens just fine in 2.1 but not in
2.54.

 

And I understand it's not a good idea to include in your documentation
methods for hacking into password-protected databases, but as I said, I am
new to this community and I'm sure this is something that is well-known
among experienced users.

 

From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Friday, June 19, 2015 6:34 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [firebird-support] New Firebird 2.54 Win 32 Install

 

  

At 05:52 a.m. 20/06/2015, Karl Sandfort [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>  [firebird-support] wrote:

>I am new to Firebird. Was able to install on Windows 7 64-bit no problem.
Immediately after install ran gsec -user 'SYSDBA' -password '<the default
firebird password>' with no problems. However, on Windows XP Pro SP3, I
downloaded the 32-bit exe installer. Install ran fine. When I try to run
gsec I get something like "User name or password not defined, see your
system admin", etc. or something like that.

I don't know why it worked on your first install....

C:\Programs32\Firebird\Firebird_2_0\bin>gsec -user 'SYSDBA' -pass
'masterkey'
Your user name and password are not defined. Ask your database administrator
to
set up a Firebird login. unable to open database

Lose the quote marks:

C:\Programs32\Firebird\Firebird_2_0\bin>gsec -user sysdba -pass masterkey
GSEC>

Helen Borrie, Support Consultant, IBPhoenix (Pacific)
Author of "The Firebird Book" and "The Firebird Book Second Edition"
http://www.firebird-books.net
__________________________________________________________ 



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