Batch Mode

Displaying User Details
Adding New Users
Deleting Existing Users
Amending Existing Users
Version Information

Note

In the following descriptions of batch mode operations, assume that I have set the ISC_USER and ISC_PASSWORD environment variables. This allows GSEC to be run without always having to specify the -user and -password switches. This in turn reduces the amount of code on the command line, which means that when this XML file is rendered into pdf, all the commandline will fit on the width of an A4 page.

It is not secure to have these variables set all the time, so don't do it !

Warning

If you are using GSEC from Firebird version 1.5 (and possibly version 1.0 as well) then when you are running in batch mode, you may think that you can check the result of an operation by checking %ERRORLEVEL% in Windows, or $? in various flavours of Unix. This doesn't work. The result is always zero.

In GSEC from Firebird version 2.0 onwards, this problem is fixed and the exit code will be zero for everything was ok, or a non-zero value for error conditions.

In batch mode, the command line to run GSEC is as follows :

     gsec [ <options> ... ] <command> [ <parameter> ... ]

Displaying User Details

To display all users in the security database the command, and its output are :

C:\>gsec -display
     user name                      uid   gid     full name
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SYSDBA                              0     0
NORMAN                              0     0      Norman  Dunbar
EPOCMAN                             0     0      Benoit Gilles Mascia

To display details of a single user, pass the username as a parameter to the display command.

C:\>gsec -display epocman
     user name                      uid   gid     full name
------------------------------------------------------------------------
EPOCMAN                             0     0      Benoit Gilles Mascia

Adding New Users

When adding a user in batch mode, there is no confirmation that the user has been added. You should use the -display or -display <name> command to check.

C:\>gsec -add newuser -pw newuser -fname New -lname User

C:\>gsec -display
     user name                      uid   gid     full name
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SYSDBA                              0     0
NORMAN                              0     0      Norman  Dunbar
NEWUSER                             0     0      New  User
EPOCMAN                             0     0      Benoit Gilles Mascia

Deleting Existing Users

When deleting a user in batch mode, there is no confirmation that the user has been deleted. You should use the -display or -display <name> command to check.

C:\>gsec -delete newuser

C:\>gsec -display
     user name                      uid   gid     full name
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SYSDBA                              0     0
NORMAN                              0     0      Norman  Dunbar
EPOCMAN                             0     0      Benoit Gilles Mascia

Amending Existing Users

Existing users can have one or more of their password, first name, middle name or lastname amended.

C:\>gsec -modify norman -pw newpassword

C:\>gsec -modify norman -mname MiddleName -fname Fred

C:\>gsec -display
     user name                      uid   gid     full name
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SYSDBA                              0     0
NORMAN                              0     0      Fred MiddleName Dunbar
EPOCMAN                             0     0      Benoit Gilles Mascia

If you wish to remove one or more of a user's attributes, don't pass a (new) value for that attribute.

C:\>gsec -modify norman -mname -fname -lname

C:\>gsec -display
     user name                      uid   gid     full name
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SYSDBA                              0     0
NORMAN                              0     0
EPOCMAN                             0     0      Benoit Gilles Mascia

Now nobody knows who I am :o)

Version Information

The version of GSEC can be obtained using the -z command. However, note that it leaves you in interactive mode on completion. It doesn't exit like the other batch mode commands do, so you have to use the interactive quit command to exit. There is a way around this problem as shown in the following. The first part shows the problem.

C:\>gsec -z
gsec version  WI-V1.5.0.4306 Firebird 1.5
GSEC>

The solution is to have a small file containing the command quit and force GSEC to read this file when it needs user input, as follows.

C:\>copy con fred
quit
^Z
        1 file(s) copied.

C:\>gsec -z <fred
gsec version  WI-V1.5.0.4306 Firebird 1.5
GSEC>
C:\>

This could be a good idea for any of the commands which leave you 'stuck' in the interactive mode when you thought you were running in batch mode. By redirecting input from a command file, GSEC will read a line of text from that file any time it requires user input. By forcing it to read the quit command, you make it exit.

Note

The -z command doesn't need a -user and -password, it will display the version details and then tell you that you don't have a username/password - but you can safely ignore this message.