CODEWITHSUNDEEP
firebirdfirebird-4.0
ralfiii
ralfiii

Reputation: 676

What to deploy for Firebird 4 clients?

Using Firebird 2, we had to deploy 3 files with our applications to be able to connect to remote firebird servers:

The first file was retrieved from the "normal" Firebird installer, the other 2 files from the "embedded" installer.

Firebird 4 doesn't provide an embedded installer, and I don't find proper information what to deploy for clients.

Reading this: https://ib-aid.com/download/docs/fb4migrationguide.html#_installing_client looks like Firebird 3 has lower demands. Is that the case? I just need communication-encryption and longer passwords, so FB3 would also be fine. (BTW, following the guide didn't bring success, otherwise I would not ask).

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1246

Answers (1)

Mark Rotteveel
Mark Rotteveel

Reputation: 109089

The minimum necessary files are listed in the document you link:

If we speak about installing Firebird client only, you need to have fbclient.dll file. Firebird 4.0 client requires Microsoft Runtime C++ 2017 with the same bitness as fbclient.dll. If Microsoft Runtime is not installed, you may just copy it’s two files, msvcp140.dll and vcruntime140.dll that are included in ZIP for Windows.

So the absolute minimum you need is fbclient.dll, and in some cases you may also need msvcp140.dll and vcruntime140.dll when those are not already installed on your system.

In addition, it is advisable to include firebird.msg for error messages, and for some use cases, adding the ICU files is advisable (if you use the functions of fbclient to render/parse WITH TIME ZONE types).

If you want wire compression, you'll also need zlib1.dll, and if you want to use Chacha wire encryption instead of the less secure ARC4, then you also need plugins/chacha.dll (the chacha.dll needs to be in a plugins folder relative to fbclient.dll).

All these libraries must be the same bitness as your application. As discussed in the comments, the problem seems to have been that you tried the 64-bit DLLs from a 64-bit Firebird installation, while your application was 32-bit.

If your application is 32-bit, then obtain the files from a 32-bit installation or zip kit, or look in the WOW64(*) folder of a 64-bit installation (from the installer, the 64-bit zip kit doesn't contain this directory). This WOW64 folder contains the 32-bit files fbclient.dll, msvcp140.dll and vcruntime140.dll (for the additional DLLs you need to use a 32-bit installer or zip kit).

* This follows the awkward Windows naming of 64-bit Windows having 64-bit files in %WINDIR%\System32, and 32-bit files in %WINDIR%\SysWOW64

Upvotes: 1

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