Category: Developer News
News from the Firebird developers.
UDFs are deprecated in Firebird 4
From Firebird 3 to 4 list of know incompatibilities file :
UDFs are deprecated in v.4. That means that UDFs can’t be used with default configuration (parameter “UdfAccess” set to “None”) and all sample UDF libraries (ib_udf, fbudf) are not distributed any more. Most of functions in that libraries were replaced with builtin analogs in previous versions and therefore already deprecated. A few remaining functions got safe replacement in UDR library “udf_compat“, namely div, frac, dow, sdow, getExactTimestampUTC and isLeapYear. Users who still wish to use UDFs should set “UdfAccess” to “Restrict <path-list>”. If you never used to modify this parameter before path-list is just UDF and resulting line in firebird.conf should be:
UdfAccess = Restrict UDF
Recommended long-term solution is replacing of UDF with UDR.
Ps: Here is the related git commit .
Firebird 3 Developers Guide (pre-beta) now available
The first pre-beta release of the English version of the Firebird 3 Develoepers Guide is now publicly available. Please report any problems or mistakes. The translation work, from Russian to English, was sponsored by a crowdfunding campaign. Thanks to all who contributed!
Fast, Furious, and Cheap: server with good-enough performance for small business database for less than US$1000
It is easy to get a powerful server if you are ready to spend many $$$: there are leading vendors like Dell, HP, and many less known hardware companies, they will be happy to sell you a powerful machine.
However, money is always a problem, especially for small businesses and start-ups, so there is a great demand for «good-enough» cheap solutions.
The new article from IBSurgeon describes the practical approach for building «good-enough» database server with the sufficient performance for small business. It also contains calculations and links to the specific products we recommend.
ADO.NET provider 5.11.0.0 for Firebird is ready (with .NET Standard 2.0 support)
ADO.NET provider 5.10.0.0 for Firebird is ready
Firebird 4 alpha
Firebird Project announces the first Alpha release of Firebird 4.0, the next major version of the Firebird relational database, which is now available for testing.
This Alpha release arrives with an early preview of the features and improvements currently under development by the Firebird development team, as well as with countless bugfixes. Our users are appreciated giving it a try and providing feedback to this mailing list. Apparent bugs can be reported directly to the bugtracker.
Alpha releases are not encouraged for production usage or any other goals that require a stable system. They are, however, recommended for those users who want to help in identifying issues and bottlenecks thus allowing to progress faster through the Beta/RC stages towards the final release.
Please read the Release Notes carefully before installing and testing this Alpha release.
Download page:
http://www.firebirdsql.org/en/firebird-4-0-0-alpha1/
Release Notes:
http://web.firebirdsql.org/downloads/prerelease/v40alpha1/Firebird-4.0.0_Alpha1-ReleaseNotes.pdf
—
Dmitry Yemanov
Fighting Petya: our experience with retrieving data from the Firebird database files encrypted by ransomware crypto-viruses
As you know, recently several crypto viruses have attacked many companies – most well-known are Wannacry and Petya. Usually, as reported by many companies, it is necessary to pay a ransom, or, in the case of Petya, all encrypted files will be lost.
Read how we can defeat Petya:
https://ib-aid.com/en/articles/fighting-petya-our-experience-with-retrieving-data-from-the-firebird-database-files-encrypted-by-ransomware-crypto-viruses/
HQbird 2017R2
HQbird 2017R2 is a major upgrade of advanced Firebird distributive (versions 2.5 and 3.0) with high-availability, replication, optimization, monitoring and recovery tools. Please upgrade the previous version of HQbird with 2017R2 (this upgrade is free for all users of HQbird).
This release includes a lot of improvements in replication, monitoring, and optimization, as well as many bugfixes. Windows installer now supports an automatic upgrade of the existing HQbird installation, Linux support for auto-upgrade will be released later.
The main goal of HQbird 2017R2 is to provide administrators and developers of big Firebird databases with effective management, maintenance, recovery, and optimization tools, in order to keep databases always healthy and available.
More details about HQbird: https://ib-aid.com/hqbird
Jaybird 3.0.1 released
The Firebird JDBC team is happy to announce the release of Jaybird 3.0.1.
Jaybird 3.0.1 contains the following fixes and changes:
- Fixed:
FBTraceManager.loadConfigurationFromFilestrips line breaks (JDBC-493) - Fixed:
FBDatabaseMetaData.getTablesdoes not list tables whererdb$relation_typeisnull(JDBC-494) - Improvement: Character sets are now initialized lazily (JDBC-495)
- Fixed: Memory leak caused by retaining blob handles until connection close (JDBC-497)
See the Jaybird 3.0.1 release notes for more information. Jaybird 3.0.1 can be downloaded from the JDBC Driver page.