One connection vs. Several

Anon

Hi there,

I come from a client/server world where every one has an inidividual database login on an application.

Now, in n-tier, I have seen a lot of apps using only a single DB connection behind the seen (simulating user login in the applciation with a users table, whatever).

This sounds ugly to me to have everybody using the same DN cnx because it spoils all the security, audit, ... features of the database login.

For an intranet site, is there any clear bar on making a separated DB connection for each user (ie. web session) ?

thx

Anon

Making a new connection to a database takes time, so the less often you do it, the faster your app will be.

PHP has something called Persistant Connections. There a re db connections that remain open even after a script ends.
The next time any script requists a connection to that same databasel, using the same username and pw, the "old" connection is re-used.
This means there are different connections for different users/databases, but you don't have to wait for the connection to be opened.

Anon

Yes, what you want is called "safe mode".

In safe mode, php scripts operate as the owner of the directory they are in, with their permissions et. al.

If you set up a database for each user, they can then each hit their own database, and when they hit the big community database, they hit it with their own id and permissions.

I've done something similar for a trial at work with postgresql and it worked fine. The best part is no one had to set name/password pairs in their scripts, reducing security exposure.