Firebird (http://www.firebirdsql.org/) With CFMX

ColdFusion MX doesn't directly support Firebird/Interbase, but it's still easy to get them working together (assuming you have enough control over the server enviroment). Currently Firebird is about the only option when it comes to free/open-source RDBMS for Windows. Of course, in the Linux world there's plenty of alternatives, one of which you're probably already using. With this in mind the following steps focus mainly on CF under Windows, but it's a simple process so you should be able to adapt it to other platforms easily enough.

Assumming you have applied the latest CFMX updater and have Firebird installed and running, here's how:

Firstly, download the latest version of the Firebird JDBC drivers. The recommended install location is \wwwroot\WEB-INF\classes, under your CFusionMX root (usually C:\CFusionMX). Personally I like to create a firebird sub-directory under classes and extract it there. You don't need everything in the archive; see the documentation for what each particular file is for.

Now log into ColdFusion Administrator. Under server settings, choose Java & JVM. You need to add the location you just extracted the JDBC drivers to your class path, something like this:
C:/CFusionMX/wwwroot/WEB-INF/classes/firebirdsql.jar

or if you made a firebird sub-directory:
C:/CFusionMX/wwwroot/WEB-INF/classes/firebird/firebirdsql.jar

Now save the changes, then restart the CF service.

Next we can try to create a Firebird datasource. Add a new datasource, choosing 'Other' in the driver select box. The JDBC URL is probably the trickiest part of the whole process. From the documentation:


JayBird supports two URL syntax formats:

Standard format = jdbc:firebirdsql:[//host[:port]/]<database>
FB old format = jdbc:firebirdsql:[host[/port]:]<database>



I've never had any problems using the "new format," which willl be something that looks like this:
jdbc:firebirdsql://localhost:3050/C:\\www\\data\\TEST.GDB
or
jdbc:firebirdsql://192.168.1.1:3050/C:\\www\\data\\TEST.GDB
are both valid. Note the double backslashes in the path.

For the same database on the same machine, the "old format" would look like this:
jdbc:firebirdsql:localhost/3050:C:\\www\\data\\TEST.GDB
or
jdbc:firebirdsql:192.168.1.1/3050:C:\\www\\data\\TEST.GDB

The next thing you need to add is the driver class. It's simply: org.firebirdsql.jdbc.FBDriver

You also need to enter the DB username and password; the Interbase/Firebird default is sysdba:password

That's more or less it. Submit your new datasource and hopefully it should verify okay. If not, check your JDBC URL.

I hope I got everything. Feel free to post corrections/problems below!