Interbase Alias Manager (IBam) is an Open Source Delphi 5 project which
centrally manages Firebird and Interbase
connection strings. (IBam is subject to the
MOZILLA PUBLIC LICENSE ).
Firebird and Interbase provide no mechanism for centrally storing
connections, IBam was designed to fill this gap by creating an Alias which
contains all necessary connection strings, including Username, Password, Role,
Character Set, Dialect etc
Alias Types
Currently there are four types of Alias's, they are
Standard. Global Alias visible to all users/applications.
Server. A Server Alias is similar to a standard alias but is centrally managed
on a central PC for easy management.
Private. Alias visible only to the application which knows the Alias Name.
Encrypted. Private Alias that is encrypted by the calling application.
Localization
Thanks to the efforts of members of the
IBam Community, IBam is now available in English, German, Spanish,
Italian and French. IBam automatically detects which version of Windows is
running and displays the correct language.
The database path within an alias can point to a local or
remote database. Remote connections can use either the TCP/IP, NetBeui or
SPX/IPX protocol.
IBam currently has the following features:
API
The Alias Manager is built around a simple API consisting of 9
functions, in a windows DLL. The DLL has a small footprint (around 140kb).
Maintenance
There is a Control Panel Applet which manages Standard Alias's
Development
To aid Delphi Developers there are 3 demo applications. There is also a native
VCL component (TIBAliasManager) which wraps up the API, this can be used in
Delphi 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6.
The following image shows the control panels Alias Manager in operation.