your database front-end

Server Outage Notice: dbFront.com will be transfering to a new Server on Friday 25th @ 7pm MST

Installing the Application Service

The dbFrontService is fully and automatically installed by the installer but you may need to update some settings if the installation was a bit more complex or if you would like to tweak them to better match your environment

Command-Line Options

By default the dbFrontService installs in: [C:\Program Files (x86)\dbFrontService].

The following are some command-line options you can use to install or uninstall the service.

  • To install, execute: dbFrontService -install
  • To uninstall, execute: dbFrontService -uninstall
  • To run without installing, execute: dbFrontService -run
  • To start the console menu: dbFrontService

Base Setting

To update the setting you need to edit the included [dbfrontservice.exe.config] file and adjust the following settings.

This first group of settings covers the core of what is required to get dbFront running.

ServicePort The port on which this service will listen. The default is 42057.
UserDomain Enter the name of the current server to use the users on the local system. You can also specify the name of a domain to use the full active directory domain.
UserContainer The name of the active directory container(s) for users and groups.  This is only required for non-default active directory structures.   e.g. "CN=Users,DC=corp,DC=domain,DC=com"
ContextType The ContextType will automatically adjust depending upon the Server or Domain that is used to authenticate the user.  If there is a problem you can manually set it to either "Machine" if you are authenticating against the local machine, or "Domain" if you are authenticating against a network Domain.
LoginType The LoginType is 2 (Interactive) by default which means that users need to have interactive Logon Rights.  If the LoginType is set to 3 (Network) then the users are expected to have network access privileges.
SetupLocked
  • If this key is missing or set to "true" then access to Settings is removed from the login screen.
  • If this key is set then dbFront will also disallow remote changes via the settings screen.  This means that the only place where the settings screen could be used to affect changes is directly on the web-server via the URL http://localhost/dbFront
ShowDomainName If this key is set to false then dbFront will hide the name of the authentication source (computer name or AD name) or replace it with the name "Default"
DataPath e.g. [Data\\]
CachePath e.g. [Cache\\]
LogPath e.g. [Logs\\]

Authentication Settings

Authentication settings are are available in the Settings dialog opened from [Help] / [Settings] / [Authentication].  For more information see: Authentication Setup.

Culture Settings

The [dbfrontservice.exe.config] file allows you to override the Culture Settings used by the entire dbFront application and service.

The currently active Culture will be shown on the [WebSite] and [Service] tabs of the Settings dialog.  To access the Settings dialog click on Help > Settings within dbFront.

By default, the CultureName will be taken from the server running the Application Server and applied everywhere.   This ensures that numbers and other data types are displayed and handled consistently within the three layers of dbFront: Service, Web Application, and Client Browser.

Service and Application Restart Required for Culture Updates

To override the server default you will need to directly update the [dbfrontservice.exe.config] file.  Once the CultureName has been updated then a restart of the Service and then Application will be required.

<configuration>
  <appSettings>
    <add key="CultureName" value="
en-US"/>
  </appSettings>
</configuration>

Please see the reference to the setting [UseHtml5NumericInput] for more related information: UseHtml5NumericInput

Database Default Settings

Database Default settings are moved to the Settings dialog opened from [Help] / [Settings] / [Service].  If upgrading is not an option then you can continue to edit the settings as described below.

The following [dbfrontservice.exe.config] settings allow you to adjust the Database Default settings.

NewDatabaseVisibility [Visible, Hidden] The default visibility of any new database made available to a connection after its initial creation.
NewTableType [Main, Child, Lookup, System]  The default visibility of any new table.
NewFieldVisibility [AppendToForm, Hidden]  The default visibility of any new field added to a table after its initial creation.

Troubleshooting

If you encounter any issues then please read our Troubleshooting Guide.

The Next Steps

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