Firebird 2.1 Release Notes

General Notes
• By popular request, Dmitry Yemanov adds some helpful performance guidelines pertaining to the “internals”
of the database monitoring system (a.k.a. “MON$”). The purpose is to assist those using this facility on
heavily loaded systems to employ it in ways that provide the information you want while minimising its
impact on the end-user experience.
• Known Issue
At some point in V.2.1 development, a breakage occurred in the behaviour of TempDirectories, the configuration
parameter by which you can configure a list of spaces where the engine can write the intermediate
sets for sorting when it finds it does not have enough RAM available for these sets. Since V.2.1 (and still),
although the engine will use the first space listed in TempDirectories, it fails to “hand on” sets to the any of
the other configured spaces if the first space is exhausted. (Tracker reference CORE-2422).
Because of the impact on related code, this regression cannot be fixed for the V.2.1.3 patch release. The
workaround for now is to ensure that you configure enough space in the single location that the engine can
address.
• A regression issue surfaced with the implementation of the new gfix shutdown modes when shutdown is
called with the -attach or -tran options. If connections are still alive when the specified timeout expires, the
engine returns a message indicating that the shutdown was unsuccessful. However, instead of leaving the
database in the online state, as it should, it puts the database into some uncertain “off-line” state and further
connections are refused.
It affects all versions of Firebird up to and including v.2.0.5 and v.2.1.3, and all v.2.5 alphas, betas and release
candidates. See Tracker ticket CORE-2846.
Patch Release 2.1.2
Firebird 2.1.2 corrects a significant number of bugs that have shown up since the v.2.1 and 2.1.1 releases.
Important Change to API DPB Parameters
A long-standing, legacy loophole in the handling of DPB parameters enabled ordinary users to make connection
settings that could lead to database corruptions or give them access to SYSDBA-only operations. The loophole
has been closed, a change that could affect several existing applications, database tools and connectivity layers
(drivers, components). Details are in Chapter 3, Changes to the Firebird API and ODS.
It also includes three minor improvements that have come from user requests:
• Requested in Tracker CORE-2243 was an improvement to reduce the duplication and confusion of the Microsoft
Visual C 8 runtime assembly rules for XP, Server2003 and Vista platforms, that have wracked the
installation of the v.2.1.x Windows packages so far. Vlad Khorsun has met that request for this sub-release.
For more information, refer to Windows installation section of the accompanying Firebird 2 Migration &
Installation document.
• Dmitry Yemanov has improved database monitoring to enable a non-SYSDBA user to monitor all of its
own attachments, not just the one which is that user's CURRENT_CONNECTION. This improvement was
requested in Tracker CORE-2233. See also Monitor Multiple Attachments in the Administrative Features
chapter.
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