Creating a security file

In order to control access to your iBase database, you must create a security file. You use the security file to control who can access the iBase and iBase Designer applications, and any iBase databases secured by the security file.

About this task

The first step in designing the security for your iBase system is to create a new security file (.ids file). You always create the security file as an MS Access file but you can choose to convert it to SQL Server format later.

Try to avoid creating multiple security files. You can provide groups with varied but restricted access to many databases secured by the same security file.

To create your own security file, you must first create or choose a folder to hold it. Only one security file can be created in each folder, but you can create subfolders to hold security files if required.

A good strategy is to create a shared folder on a server machine with high availability to all likely users. All users of a database must have access to the folder to log on and open databases.

The default location for the database or the database connection file is the same folder as the security file.

Note:
  • For Access databases, you must allow enough disk space to hold the database files (Access databases are limited to 2 Gb).
  • For SQL Server databases, the database files that are held in the folder with the security file are connection files that hold only enough administrative data to allow connection to the SQL Server database system. These connection files are much smaller than full databases, typically in the range 50 kilobytes through 1 MB. Full use of iBase facilities imposes some other requirements on the machine that is running SQL Server.

Procedure

To create a security file:
  1. Start iBase Designer.
  2. From the File menu, select New Security File. The Create New Security File dialog is displayed.
  3. Browse to the folder you for your security file.
    Note: If you want the security file to be accessible from any machine on the network, you must use a UNC path. For example: \\Server1\Databases\Fraud.ids
  4. In the File name field, enter a name for the file.
  5. Click Save.
    iBase Designer creates the ids file and displays a message that says that you are logged on to the new security file as, for example, SYSADMIN (with the password SYSADMIN).
    Important: Do not use this user or this password for an operational database. Create another user with system administration rights, with a different name and password, then delete the SYSADMIN user.
    The path that is used to create the security file is displayed in the status area at the bottom of the iBase Designer window.
  6. Click OK.

What to do next

Now that the security file is available, you can start the following tasks:

After you create a security file, you must give authorized users access to it at the Windows™ level, and also protect it from accidental deletion.

You must also include it in any backup schedules for the database. For more information, see iBase backup policies.

You can move or copy a security file to a different server machine. For more information, see: