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First draft of plugins readme file
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<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>Firebird plugins.</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><BR>
</P>
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<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>Since version 3, Firebird
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supports plugins architecture. This means that for a number of
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predefined points in Firebird code, user can write his own fragment of
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code which will be executed when needed. Plugin is not necessarily
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always written be user - Firebird already has a number of plugins
which are its native part. Moreover, as you will see later, some
core parts of Firebird are implemented as plugins. </FONT>
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</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>First of all a few words
about the term “plugin”. Unfortunately, it's often used to define
related but different things. Plugin is used to name:</FONT></P>
<UL>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>dynamic library,
containing code to be loaded as plugin (often called plugin module)
and stored in $FIREBIRD/plugins directory;</FONT></P>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>code implementing
plugin – slightly different from the library cause single dynamic
library may contain code for more than one plugin;</FONT></P>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>plugin's factory - an
object created by that code (pure virtual C++ class), creating
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plugin instances on Firebird request;</FONT></P>
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<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>instance of plugin,
created by factory.</FONT></P>
</UL>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>In most cases it's clear
from context what “plugin” do we talk about. If not it will be
clarified explicitly.</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>One should not expect that
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Firebird plugin architecture will make it possible to create any kind
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of plugin you want. To be able to have plugin (for example)
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encrypting database on the disk, Firebird code should be prepared for
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it – must have a point from which plugin is called. I.e. each
version has a fixed set of plugins which are supported. To add one
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more type, first of all Firebird code should be modified. What DOES
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our plugin architecture – it helps to make both adding new types of
plugins and writing plugin code simple and as universal between
plugins as possible.</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>Firebird 3 has a following
set of plugin types:</FONT></P>
<UL>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>user authentication
related: AuthServer (validates user's credentials on server when use
logins), AuthClient (prepares credentials to be passed over the
wire) and AuthUserManagement (maintains a list of users on a server
in a form, known to AuthServer);</FONT></P>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>ExternalEngine
controls use of various engines, see README.external_routines;</FONT></P>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>Trace plugin is known
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from Firebird 2.5, but a way how it interacts with engine was
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changed to match new generic rules; </FONT>
</P>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>encrypting plugins
are for network (WireCrypt) and disk (DbCrypt), there is also helper
plugin KeyHolder, which is used to help maintaining secret key(s)
for DbCrypt;</FONT></P>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>and probably the most
important kind – Provider. Firebird 3 supports providers as a kind
of plugins, which has nothing outstanding compared with others. See
README.Providers for more information about providers. </FONT>
</P>
</UL>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>Plugins are using a set of
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special Firebird interfaces (see README.interfaces about interfaces
in Firebird). All plugin-specific interfaces are reference counted,
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i.e. have explicitly controlled lifetime. Interfaces are declared in
Plugin.h include file. There is a simple example of writing plugin
module – DbCrypt_example. It does not perform any actual encryption
– just a sample of how to write plugin. Complete instruction of how
to write plugins is out of this document's scope. Here is provided a
short list of plugin features:</FONT></P>
<UL>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>plugin may be written
using any language, supporting pure virtual interfaces (you will
need to rewrite interfaces declarations for your language if they
are missing);</FONT></P>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>like with UDFs you
are free to add any reasonable code yo your plugin, but pay
attention to word “reasonable” - asking a question from plugin
at server's console is hardly good idea;</FONT></P>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>it's OK to use
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Firebird API calls in your plugin if needed (for example, default
authentication server and user manager are using Firebird database
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to store accounts);</FONT></P>
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<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>additionally Firebird
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provides a set of interfaces, helping you to configure your plugins
(certainly, you are not forced to use them – plugin is generic
code, which may use any way of providing configuration information,
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but with standard tools you get common for the rest of Firebird
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configuration style and sooner of all save you efforts).</FONT></P>
</UL>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>Configuring plugins has 2
parts – first, engine should be instructed what plugins it should
load, and next plugins themselves sometimes need some configuration.
What plugins to be loaded is defined in main configuration file –
firebird.conf for each type of plugin. Like any other value in
firebird.conf the have defaults:</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4><I>AuthServer = Srp,
Win_Sspi</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4><I>AuthClient = Srp,
Win_Sspi, Legacy_Auth</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4><I>UserManager = Srp</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4><I>TracePlugin = fbtrace</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4><I>Providers =
Remote,Engine12,Loopback</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4><I>WireCryptPlugin = Arc4</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>This provides normal
operation in server, client and embedded cases. If you want to add
other plugins, you must mention them in firebird.conf – except
other this is security measure to avoid loading unknown code. But
what does for example fbtrace mean here? Is it a name of dynamic
library to load? In trivial case yes, but exact answer is more
complicated.</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>As it was already
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mentioned, single plugin module may implement more than single plugin.
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Moreover, single plugin may have at the same time more than one
configuration – and for each configuration separate plugin's
factory is created. Each of this 3 objects (module – implementation
– factory) has it's own name. Name of a module is a file name of
dynamic library. Plugin implementation's name is one given to it by
plugin developer and hard-coded inside module. Factory's name by
default equals to plugin implementation's name (and it's factory name
which is actually used in firebird.conf). Certainly in typical
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trivial case, module contains one plugin, and that plugin works with
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only one configuration, and all 3 names are equal, and no more
configuration is needed – for example libEngine12.so or
Engine12.dll contains implementation of provider Engine12, and
nothing else except record </FONT>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>Providers = Engine12</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>in firebird.conf is needed
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to load it. But if you have something complex – file will help
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you to have such plugin factories which you really want.</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>File plugins.conf has 2
types of records – config and plugin. Plugin record is a set of
rules for plugin's loading and activating. Plugin record has the
following format:</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4><I>Plugin = PlugName ##
this is name to be referenced in firebird.conf</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4><I>{</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"> <FONT SIZE=4><I>Module = LibName ##
name of dynamic library</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"> <FONT SIZE=4><I>RegisterName =
RegName ## name given to plugin by it's developer</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"> <FONT SIZE=4><I>Config = ConfName ##
name of config record to be used</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"> <FONT SIZE=4><I>ConfigFile = ConfFile
## name of a file, containing plugin's configuration</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4><I>}</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>i.e. when plugin PlugName
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is needed Firebird loads library LibName, finds in it plugin
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registered with name RegName and passes it configuration from config
record ConfName or config file ConfFile (config record is used if
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both are given). Each parameter in this record may be missing, in
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that case the default PlugName is used. The only exception is
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ConfigFile – by default, file with same name as module's dynamic
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library but .conf extension is used. ConfigFile is expected to have
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format Key=Value (like other Firebird configuration files), same
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format is used for plugin record:</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4><I>Config = ConfName</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4><I>{</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"> <FONT SIZE=4><I>Key1 = Value1</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"> <FONT SIZE=4><I>Key2 = Value2</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"> <FONT SIZE=4><I>...</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4><I>}</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>Let's have a sample.
Suppose some clients of your server trust wire encryption from one
vendor and others – from another one (and have different licenses
for appropriate client parts), but each vendor calls his plugin
BestCrypt. Certainly, first of all you have to rename libraries to
something like WC1 and WC2 – one can't have 2 files with same name
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in one directory. But after it, modules stop to load automatically –
they are not named BestCrypt any more. To fix it, plugins.conf should
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contain something like this:</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4><I>Plugin = WC1</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4><I>{</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"> <FONT SIZE=4><I>RegisterName =
BestCrypt</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4><I>}</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4><I>Plugin = WC2</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4><I>{</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"> <FONT SIZE=4><I>RegisterName =
BestCrypt</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4><I>}</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>Module names will be
automatically set to WC1 and WC2 and found. Certainly you may add
some configuration info for plugins if needed. Also don't forget to
modify firebird.conf:</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4><I>WireCryptPlugin = WC1,
WC2</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>After it server will
automatically select appropriate plugin to talk to client.</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>Another sample may be
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found in distributed with Firebird plugins.conf. One of standard
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plugins, UDR, is written to use non-default configuration. Therefore
module name and one configuration parameter are given explicitly.</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>Questions and answers.</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>Q. There are plugins named
Remote, Loopback, Arc4 in default configuration, but no libraries
with such names. How do they work?</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>A. That are so-called
'built-in' plugins. They are built into fbclient library, and
therefore are always present. Arrival of such plugins is due to old
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ability to distribute windows Firebird client as single dll. It was
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decided to keep such feature at least for a case when standard set of
plugins is used.</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>Q. What do names of Srp
and Arc4 plugins mean?</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>A. Srp implements Secure
Remote Passwords protocol which is default way of authenticating
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users in Firebird 3. It has efficient password’s length equal to 20
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bytes, resistant to most of attacks (including man in the middle) and
does not require exchanging any keys between client and server to
work. Arc4 means Alleged RC4 - an implementation of RC4 cypher. The
advantage of SRP is that it can generate unique cryptographically
strong key on both client and server and it's impossible to guess it
capturing data transferred over the wire during password validation
by SRP. That key is used after SRP handshake by Arc4, which makes
wire encryption secure without need to exchange any keys between
client and server explicitly.</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>Q. And what do Win_Sspi
and Legacy_Auth mean?</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4>A. Windows SSPI was used
since FB 2.1 for windows trusted authentication. Legacy_Auth is
compatibility plugin. It's enabled by default on client to let it
connect to pre-FB3 servers. (Yes – it still transfers almost plain
passwords over the wire. Compatibility...) On server it works with
security database from FB 2.5, and should be avoided except cases
when you understand well what are you doing. To use Legacy_Auth on
server you should also disable network traffic encryption in
firebird.conf:</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4><I>WireCrypt = Disabled</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><BR>
</P>
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