Under Firebird 1.5 there are two versions of the changeRunUser.sh script, the one prefixed 'SS' is for Superserver installations and the one prefixed 'CS' is for Classic Server installations. In Firebird 2 onwards, the script is simply changeRunUser.sh.

Note: The script should be run as root.

The changeRunUser.sh script allows the user and group, under which the Firebird server runs, to be changed. By default, this is now the firebird user and group, however, in previous versions the Firebird server ran as the root user which is undesirable from a system security point of view and allowed databases to be created all over the file system. With the new firebird user, restrictions can be placed on where databases can be created.

The script changes the owning user and group of a number of files in the Firebird installation directory, the logfile and also the startup script /etc/rc.d.init.d/firebird which is used to start and stop the Firebird server.

To run the script, use a command line similar to the following:

changeRunUser.sh <username> <groupname>

The script takes two parameters on the command line, both of which are optional as you will be prompted if both are omitted. If you only supply one parameter, it is assumed to be the username and you will be prompted for the groupname.

• username

This parameter sets the username under which the Firebird server is to run. The supplied value is validated against entries in /etc/passwd.

• groupname

This parameter sets the groupname under which the Firebird server is to run. The supplied value is validated against entries in /etc/group.

The following example shows the use of changeRunUser.sh to change the owning user and group to firebird. The firebird user and group is actually the default when Firebird is installed so there is no need for you to run the script unless you have changed these details already.

# cd /opt/firebird/bin
# ./changeRunUser.sh firebird firebird
Updating /opt/firebird
Updating startup script
Completed

If you are running Firebird 2.1 or higher, there is no longer a prompt if you run this script with no parameters. The script now defaults to firebird for the user and group if you do not supply any parameters. Running the script under 2.1 gives the following:

# cd /opt/firebird/bin
# ./changeRunUser.sh
Shutting down Firebird 			                   
                                         done

Change Firebird install for /opt/firebird to uid=firebird gid=firebird
(User or group options can be changed by editing this script)

Press return to continue - or ^C to abort
Updating /etc file(s)
 Updating /opt/firebird
Starting Firebird 				                   
Completed.                                 done

Warning: When this script prompts you to Press return to continue … any VNC sessions connected to the database server will have been killed. Please ensure that you have the server at a quiet period and not during normal running hours when you make this change. This affects Suse Linux Enterprise 10 but may affect other Linux distributions as well.