If you were to log in, you'd be able to get more information on your fellow community member.
On the subject of RDBMS security, the free PostgreSQL (from about version 6.0 on) allows restricting TCP connections to particular IP addresses. In fact, PgSQL allows much more than that; check out http://www.postgresql.org for more info.
I like Patrick's recipe, but I have a few ingredient changes that work for me in April, 98.Linux (RedHat 5.0) AOLserver 2.3 (beta4) PostgreSQL 6.3.1
AOLserver's built-in support for Postgres is high notch work. All of Philg's examples from Database-backed Web sites run under the AOL/Postgres combo except for the ones requiring the full-text indexing of Illustra/PLS. I regularly have uptimes in the months, with a moderatly loaded PPro 200.
For those that don't have the $500 to spend on Solid WebEngine for Linux to use with AOLserver, PostgreSQL (versions 6.2.1 and later) works nicely.