Security Hot Issue for Open-Source Database Developers

Open-source database deployments rose dramatically in the last half of 2005, and as one might expect, as more IT pros get acquainted with these non-proprietary systems, security is a chief concern. Open-source database makers like MySQL and PostgreSQL [ED: and Firebird] simply must answer some of the most prevalent security-related questions in order to win more market share.

One of those questions is, with recent headlines suggesting customer data stored on organizational databases is at risk, should those who opt for open-source database applications be worried? Not according to data suggesting proprietary database software is breached more often. But data alone is not enough. What IT executives really want to know is what specific technological security precautions open-source DB developers need to take.

"We continue to see the maturation of open-source databases reflected by the continually increasing levels of adoption," said John Andrews, President, Evans Data. "In a number of our ratings categories, we're seeing open-source databases meeting or exceeding proprietary databases."

Read this full article at TechNewsWorld
..::firebird::..::mysql::..::postgresql::..::oracle::..::mssql::..::db2::..

New list: firebird-job-board

Hello all,

A new list has been started on Yahoogroups - a job board for devs
with Firebird skills and for employers looking for them. :-)

It's a pretty tightly moderated list.

You can look it up from the Lists and News Groups page of our main
website, or go straight there if you like.
http://www.yahoogroups.com/community/firebird-job-board

All you'll see in the archives right now is a couple of messages
posted by Calin Pirtea, who's helping with the
moderation. (Actually, you won't see the archives at all if you're
not a member...)

Feel free to link to the list from your own websites. It all helps
for getting us "out there".

Helen

..::firebird::..

Firebird Embeddable Database for .NET - Blog of the day

"An article about dotLucene at CodeProject suggests FireBird as a DBMS for .NET apps with comparable and even better capabilities (for some features) than the commercial counterparts."

Read more on his blog
..::firebird::..::dotnet::..::.net::..

Whats New in Firebird 1.5.3

Spoted the list of changes on fbtalk also you can find them in release notes
Whats New

(1.5.3) Two ISQL Improvements
C. Valderrama, D. Ivanov
1. Command line switch -b to bail out on error when used in non-interactive mode.
2. Return an error code to the operating system from command-line isql


(1.5.3) Make Old Column Naming Convention available
Paul Reeves
Added OldColumnNaming parameter to firebird.conf to allow users to revert to pre-V1.5 column
naming in Select expressions.


(1.5.3) Security diagnostics added
Alex Peshkoff
Attempts to send signals via a missing gds_relay may be an exploit attempt. They are now logged.


(1.5.3) Closed an Endemic Security Hole
Alex Peshkoff
Previously, a user could log into a server on a Unix/Linux host remotely, using a Linux UID and password
accepted on that host. It was recognised as a security hole and fixed in Firebird 2 development.
It is an endemic security bug in previous versions and InterBase. The security fix has been back-ported
to Firebird 1.5.3: a UID received from the client side is now not trusted.

..::firebird::..

Firebird 1.5.3 Released

The Firebird Project is pleased to announce the Firebird 1.5.3 release, representing a year of bug fixes and minor enhancements, many back-ported from the Firebird 2.0 developments. Kits are available for Windows and Linux.

..::firebird::..

Firebird ODBC Driver V2.0 (Beta V2.00.000...000000000000000.00126) is available for download.

A new version of the Firebird Open Source ODBC Driver V2.0 (Beta V2.00.00.00126) is available for download.
..::firebird::..::odbc::..::unix::..::linux::..

How Relevant for firbird project is the Homeland Security Grant?

How it will work ,Shows how Coverity worked with linux kernel developers in the past sending them patches

"For now, Coverity plans to publish the defect reports on a semi-private Web site so that any developer associated with a particular open source project can examine the list, determine if something actually needs to be fixed, and then create a fix and submit it to the project lead. This is currently the model used by Coverity for the defects they published for the Linux kernel."

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/6146/1/
..::firebird::..::linux::..::security::..

how to work with fishes (BLOBS) in firebird

Devrace have published an article entitled "How to work with Blobs using FIBPlus" written by Sergey Vostrikov, translated by Marina Novikova.

Read more | Post comment

..::firebird::..

Firebird User Community Map - win an Cuckoo clock

There is now a Frappr map for Firebird. Go ahead and register yourself. The 1,000th registrant might be honoured with a Cuckoo clock.

Read more | Post comment
..::firebird::..

InstantObjects 2.0 beta 2 released

On behalf of the InstantObjects team, I am proud to announce the
release of the second beta of the long-awaited version 2 of
InstantObjects.

Download URL:

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/instantobjects/InstantObjects-2.0.beta2-src.zip?download

Feedback:

Please test this release and report back any problems by means of our
newsgroups and trackers.

Ciao
--
Nando Dessena
..::firebird::..

The government is here to help open source

The government is here to help open source by ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn -- Sounds like a win-win-win. Tell me it's not.

..::firebird::..

Latest number of DB FreeMagazine (#007) is out

The lastest number of DB FreeMagazine (#7) brings an article about how to configure Wine on linux to be able to run IBExpert and other Delphi applications.
How to backup Mysql databases using Replication ,
Installing Oracle10 under Slackware, Firebird Conference 2005,
Firebird usage statistics (opinion poll)
Magazine is free, but is in portuguese. Some work is being done to have a version of the article in english.
..::firebird::..oracle::..linux::..mysql::..slackware::..postgresql::..wine::..

All you didn't want to know about Firebird's Unicode

You can now download the slides from Stefan Heymann's talk "What Developers Should Know about Character Sets, Unicode etc.".
It was presented at Firebird Conference 2005 .

Dmitri Kovalenko, LCPI wrote about unicode in September issue of The Firebird Developer Magazine:
Working with UNICODE in InterBase/Firebird

Related to unicode is Joel Spolsky's article The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!)


..::firebird::...::unicode::...::delphi::..

Firebird ADO.NET Data Provider 2.0 Beta 3 released

The Firebird ADO.NET Data Provider 2.0 Beta 3 for Microsoft.NET 2.0 is
available for download.

Download information can be found here:

http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php?op=files&id=netprovider

(Please read the Changelog for details)

Bug Fixes:

- Fixed problem with the FbDataAdapter design time support.

- Fixed TableAdapter integration in Visual Studio 2005 now the
tableadapters should have select, insert, update and delete commands
when requested.

- Fixed bugs in Indexes and Index columns schemas.

..::firebird::....::mono::....::.net::....::dotnet::..

Homeland Security helps secure Firebird

I saw firebird in the list of targets

“Through its Science and Technology Directorate, the department has
given $1.24 million in funding to Stanford University, Coverity and
Symantec to hunt for security bugs in open-source software and to
improve Coverity’s commercial tool for source code analysis,
representatives for the three grant recipients told CNET News.com.”

http://news.com.com/Homeland+Security+helps+secure+open-source+code/2100-1002_3-6025579.html?tag=nefd.lede

..::firebird::..security::..

Firebird News HQ

Hello!

I always claimed about the lack of an "oficial" HQ for news related
to Firebird. Until now, people needed to dig into several sites to get up
to date with the "Firebird World".

For this reason, I created www.firebirdnews.org

The site is mainly a blog and will be driven by the community. I mean,
registered people who wants to be authors for the site will be allowed
to post new items with no moderation and full speed, ie: 1-LogIn, 2-Write It,
3-Publish it, and it will be online! No delays, no authorization
requests!

In other words: The site needs you! Being an author doesn't
means that you will have to write documents with dozen pages. It means
that you will have the right to post to the site. Actually the posts
are not big, since usually it will just give the user an introduction
to something hosted in another site.

Please enter the above URL and read the "About this site" and "Author
rules", and if you agree (why not?), please register yourself. As
soon as I see your registration, you will be promoted to Author role
and can begin posting new items.

For the RSS entusiasts, the site already offers possibility to track
the new posts and comments using a RSS reader.

[]s

Carlos (Membro do TeamFB - FireBase)
WarmBoot Informatica - http://www.warmboot.com.br
FireBase - http://www.FireBase.com.br

..::firebird::..

The Firebird ADO .NET Data Provider V2.0 Beta 2

The Firebird ADO .NET Data Provider V2.0 Beta 2 for Microsoft .NET 2.0 is available for download.
..::firebird::....::mono::....::.net::....::dotnet::..

Daffodil CRM 1.5 includes Firebird support

Daffodil Software have broadened the number of database choices for their CRM product. Previously limited to DaffodilDB, the CRM product now also supports Firebird, acknowledging Firebird's continuing march forward as the database workhorse for midmarket business applications.

Read more | Post comment
..::firebird::..::crm::..

An interview with Chris Date

O'Reilly has an in-depth interview with Chris Date, who co-wrote "The third manifesto" and helped promote the relational model in the mid-70's. Chris has outspoken views about the relational model, SQL, object-relational databases and much more. What would our own Jim Starkey have to say about Chris' views?

Read more | Post comment

..::firebird::....::databases::....::sql::....::rdbms::..

FBMail V1.2 is available for download.

FBMail V1.2 is available for download.
Project (where FBMail is included) announces New support mechanism :
FBUtils now has a new email list for support, the email list is fbutils-users. All feature requests and bug reports should still be added via the Sourceforge interface.
..::firebird::..::php::..::mail::..

Sample Code for Shriking a Database (aka Firebird Vacuuming)

Oscar Porcar contributed a piece of code (c#) that does a database backup and restore to keep its size as small as possible. It might be useful for cases when you insert and delete some temporary data and the database size increases (the server doesn't shrink it automatically - instead it reuses the "empty" space when adding new data.)
..::firebird::....::mono::....::.net::....::dotnet::..

How to use firebirds GSEC utility to add, delete and modify users.

GSEC is a utility firebirds utility for managing users.
Here is how to use it
..::firebird::..::Sekrty::..

All-in-one installer for Compiere + Fyracle

Mohdizaniahmad writes: "I managed to prepare an all-in-one installer for windows environment. It has compiere 2.5.3a + fyracle-0.8.10 + jdk 5.0 in a single install. [...] You can install compiere in just a minute with the necessary shortcut ready for you. The installer is about 250 MB in size."
Read more
..::firebird::...::oracle::...::crm::...::compiere::..

Firebird SQL Roadmap for 2006 - sqlsummit.com

Following a recent developer conference in Prague, the Firebird Project published a roadmap for 2006 and beyond. Firebird 3.0 will merge Firebird 2.0 with the Vulcan code base, which includes fine-grained multi-threading and enhanced security. Target date for a beta version of Firebird 3.0 is the second quarter of 2006. (more).

..::firebird::..

Firebird Performance - Build for Speed

- Add more ram is cheap (if server is swapping)
- Buy an 64 bit server (for databases is an must to have more than 4G of ram) if database is more than 30G
- Build an raid 0 array (for speed)
- Use Firebird Classic for SMP systems (multicore)
More ideas in this blog post
..::firebird::..

Firebird - open your FLAP[s] - New acronym

FLAP is an acronym for a set of Free Software programs commonly used together to run dynamic web sites:

• Firebird, the database management system (or database server);
• Linux, the operating system;
• Apache, the web server;
• Perl, PHP, and/or Python, scripting languages.

..::Firebird::..::Linux::..::Apache::..::Perl::..::Php::..::Python::..

Request for Ideas: Firebird in .NET Tutorial

Dan working on a tutorial that should cover the basics of Firebird and its usage in .NET.
http://www.dotnetfirebird.org/blog/...ird-in-net.html
..::firebird::....::mono::....::.net::....::dotnet::..