Firebird News

Jaybird 2.2.8 has been released. See https://github.com/FirebirdSQL/jaybird/releases/tag/v2.2.8 … for details and download links.
Full release notes are here

All Jaybird releases are listed on GitHub, including release notes and/or binaries when available: https://github.com/FirebirdSQL/jaybird/releases …

FDB Python driver for Firebird v1.4.6 is available for download. This is
pure bugfix release. Solves ‘weakly-referenced object no longer exists’
problem (PYFB-50)

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/fdb

best regards
Pavel Cisar
IBPhoenix

SQL Relay version 0.59 is now available
Firebird Related Changes:

• added global temp table tracking for firebird
• added droptemptables parameter for firebird
• added globaltemptables parameter for oracle and firebird
• fixed blob-input binds on firebird

Firebird recently added support for global temporary tables. Their implementation is very similar to Oracle’s. SQL Relay now manages global temporary tables identically for Oracle and Firebird. There is even a droptemptables parameter in the Firebird connection configuration, analogous to the same parameter for Oracle.

In fact, support for global temporary tables has been generally improved. In the past, tables created during the current SQL Relay session were tracked and truncated at the end of the session, but global temporary tables created during previous runs of SQL Relay or outside of SQL Relay altogether were ignored, leading to those global temporary tables not being truncated at the end of the session. The Oracle and Firebird connections now support a globaltemptables parameter that can be set to a list of tables that should be truncated at the end of each session, or to “%”, which causes SQL Relay to query the database for the list of global temp tables to truncate.

I am a Wireshark developer and I was perusing the Wireshark bug list and came across an unsubmitted patch to the existing Firebird dissector (https://bugs.wireshark.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=3749). It was rather old, so it didn’t apply cleanly, but I tried to take the principles of the patch and apply them to the current Firebird dissector (which doesn’t look like its really been modified for functionality since its inception). I’m otherwise unfamiliar with Firebird, but tried to briefly peruse the source to try to complete as much as I could given the capture file also supplied with the bug report. The patch I came up with has been submitted (https://code.wireshark.org/review/8494/).

This is an open invitation/offer for help in bringing the dissector more up to date/complete. Many of the fields for commands are present in the dissector, but currently commented out (I’m presuming because the original author may not have been sure of the message format). I think the format/API used in the dissector is fairly straightforward (if someone here just wants to take a shot at it), but I’ve also been doing Wireshark development for a few years and it has become second nature. The two biggest issues are “dissecting a response” (especially across multiple packets) and captures to verify functionality against. Again, if someone can help me more quickly interpret the “protocol” code in the Firebird source, I’m willing to do the development on the Wireshark side.
Thank you for your time,

Michael Mann

Change 8494 had a related patch set uploaded by Michael Mann
Improve Firebird dissector.

https://code.wireshark.org/review/8494

• May 19 – Prague, Czech Republic
• June 5 – Moscow, Russia

http://firebirdsql.org/en/firebird-tour-2015/