The "How to Load..." sections cover only the most important command line options. For a complete listing of all the other options available with the DP4 networking programs refer to Command Tails in the Quick Reference section.
It is often useful to have
several alternate startup sections in the DP4 configuration file
with different configurations of DP4 networking. The DP4 loader
program accepts the command tail
−startup=section_name and processes the
appropriate section, when you start the DP4 service.
On Windows and Windows CE platforms (apart from Windows 3.x) DP4 networking is run as part of the DP4 service loaded by srvw32.exe/srvwce.exe You configure which components as run are part of the DP4 service by editing the [startup] section of the DP4 configuration file as described here. Therefore, on Win32 platforms DP4 networking can be autoloaded by DP4 applications and you may not need to start it at boot time. However, on Windows NT family machines, DP4 will be typically run as an automatically started service, because ordinary users are not allowed to stop and start services, and because machines will not be able to act as servers when there is no user logged on otherwise.
Up to and including release 4.523 DP4 networking components must be manually loaded, as described for Other Platforms below. However, as of release 4.525, DP4 networking components may be run as part of the "DP4 service" controlled by dbdaemon, though you can continue to load components manually if required.
There are several advantages to using dbdaemon:
You can store alternate DP4 configurations in the DP4 configuration file, exactly as on Windows, and use the -startup=section_name command tail on dbdaemon in the same way as for srvw32 on Windows.
You can combine use dbdaemon and shell scripts to enhance its capabilities. For example dbdaemon will not expand environment variable names, but you can invoke a shell script that does. An example of this is discussed in Accessing Environtment Variables.
Currently, on non-Windows platforms and Windows 3.x, DP4 networking components must be manually loaded before attempting to run a DP4 program, otherwise the DP4 program will try to auto-load the regular DP4 database manager and access databases locally. Typically you will write a batch file or shell script that loads your desired configuration, and arrange for this to be run when the machine is booted.
The command lines shown in this guide are suitable for inclusion in such scripts.