5.1.1. Changing the SYSDBA password

One Firebird account is created automatically as part of the installation process: SYSDBA. This account has all the privileges on the server and cannot be deleted. Depending on version, OS, and architecture, the installation program will either

  • install the SYSDBA user with the password masterkey, or

  • ask you to enter a password during installation, or

  • generate a random password and store that in the file SYSDBA.password within your Firebird installation directory.

If the password is masterkey and your server is exposed to the Internet at all — or even to a local network, unless you trust every user with the SYSDBA password — you should change it immediately. Fire up isql or another Firebird client and connect to a database. In this example, the “employee” example database is used, because its alias is always present in a freshly installed Firebird setup:

  1. connect localhost:employee user sysdba password masterkey;

If you do this in isql, it should respond with:

  1. Database: localhost:employee, User: SYSDBA

Now alter the sysdba password:

  1. alter user sysdba set password 'Zis4_viZuna83YoYo';

The SET keyword is optional, and instead of USER SYSDBA you can also use CURRENT USER, which always refers to the user you are logged in as.

If the command succeeds, you won’t get any feedback. Instead, isql will just print the next “SQL>”-prompt, thus indicating that all is well and your further input is awaited.

Please notice that unlike “regular” user names, Firebird passwords are always case sensitive.