Installing InterBase 2007 as a non-root user on Linux

If it is intended to run InterBase in this way it is best to not start InterBase when logged as root. This is because on startup certain files are created. These are owned by the user that started InterBase.

1. Install InterBase when logged in as root. If prompted for a serial number, skip this stage.
2. Create a user called interbase.
3. Make sure that the following directories are writable by the interbase user:
/opt/interbase
/opt/interbase/license
/var/run
4. Make sure that /opt/interbase/admin.ib is writable by the interbase user.
5. Make sure that /opt/interbase/bin/ibmgr is executable by interbase user.
6. If installed on SuSE 10, edit /opt/interbase/bin/ibmgr and comment out the lines that export the LD_ASSUME_KERNEL variable.
7. Start InterBase using this command line:

    echo './ibmgr -start -forever' | su interbase 

InterBase will not start yet because it has not been registered.
8. You will find a registration code in the interbase.log file. Go to http://reg.borland.com and enter your serial number and this code. An activation file will be mailed back to you.
9. Copy the activation file to /opt/interbase/license
10. Make the interbase user the owner of this file.
11. InterBase should now start.

If you intend to run InterBase as a service, you will need to make a change to /etc/init.d/ibservd_gds_db. Edit this file and make the following change:

replace the ibserver_start() function with this one:

ibserver_start()
{
su interbase -c "$INTERBASE/bin/ibmgr -start -forever"
}