A Berkeley DB environment is an encapsulation of one or more databases, log files, and region files. You can administer a Berkeley DB environment simply by creating a single home directory that stores the files for the applications that will share the environment.
Berkeley DB never creates the environment home directory by itself. You must create the environment home directory before running any Berkeley DB application. You can then identify the environment by the name of that directory. See “The Berkeley DB Environment” in the Oracle Berkeley DB Programmer's Reference Guide for more information.
To provide security, you can use the Berkeley DB API to encrypt an entire environment and its contents.