Chee Yang wrote:
Each release of Firebird has it own gbak.exe.
I am just wondering if I can use any version of gbak to backup/restore any version of firebird database?
For example, can I use gbak.exe from Firebird 1.5 to backup/restore Firebird 1.5/2.0/2.5 database?
Or can I use gbak.exe from Firebird 2.5 to backup/restore Firebird 1.5/2.0/2.5 database?
I have tried it and it seems work. Is it advisable to do so?
Dmitry Kuzmenko answers:
gbak is not a spherical horse, it related to the ODS (database structure), because it need to know all new metadata changes that is new for the new Firebird version.
Thus, gbak have it's own backup format, to be understood by the previous versions of gbak (is it compatible or not). Usual compatibility is from top to bottom, i.e. gbak from FB 2.5 can understand previous backup formats.
gbak makes backup only in it's native format. If you will use gbak from 2.5 with Firebird 1.5, you can make backup, but can't (probably) make restore (from 2.5 format), because Firebird 1.5 itself does not know anything about 2.5 features.
Also new versions of gbak sometimes have new features.
In common, using gbak from different Firebird version than server is pointless, and can be used only in rare cases (including repairing old databases) to migrate "down", for example, from Firebird 2.5 to Firebird 1.5 (here you need gbak from 1.5). No guarantee of success for this kind of migration, of course.
So, finally, you should use same gbak version that Firebird server have.