Anyone familiar with Filemaker? Remote access in particular.

D

dak125

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 14, 2002
Messages
475
Hola,

I run a Filemaker database for my records in my office. I am able to access the machine with my laptop when I am on the same network. Unfortunately I am unable to access the database when I am on any other network. This, of course, poses quite the problem because I need to access that information when I'm out of the office.

Does anyone know how I can setup remote access to Filemaker using an outside network?

Thanks!
 
I'm a little confused...

You indicate you can connect to your computer. I assume this is via Remote Desktop Computing, VNC, etc....

If that's the case, and you can see your computers screen, can you not just fire up FM Pro and see it that way?

I must be missing something here.

BTW... Depending on what version of FMP you have, it DOES have the capability to publish to the web, but that's an entirely different thing...
 
Sorry about the confusion.

When I am in my office, connected to the same wireless connection the desktop running Filemaker is on, I can connect to the database on Filemaker.

When I am at my house and I try connecting to Filemaker, it does not work.

I did come across this which appears to be exactly what I need. I will try it on Monday when I'm back in the office.
 
Right, thats what I was talking about :)

Ive never done it, but I know it can be done.
 
A little help if you wouldn't mind...

I'm in the office trying to set this up and I'm having a bit of an issue. Following that 'guide' posted above I signed up for DynDNS in order to obtain a static IP. That went fine but Filemaker is still only showing the Dynamic IP address, not the static one. Meaning when I go to sharing it shows my internal, dynamic IP as opposed to the one I would be able to access from an outside network.

If I try typing the static IP in from my laptop it doesn't show there being any Filemaker databases I'm assuming because Filemaker is still only on the dynamic IP.

Any ideas?
 
Well, I'm afraid I'm about to make matters MUCH worse for you, but there simply is no way around that.

First, you need to understand that DynDNS does not provide static IP's. It is purely a DNS Re-Director. It monitors your ISP-provided DHCP IP Address (the one your router uses), and sets your chosen DNS name (i.e. dak125.dyndns.org) to that IP.

If it see's your IP change, it changes your DNS name to refer to it automatically.

That way, you access your 'site' by using www.dak125.dyndns.org instead of your IP, which could change at any time.

Ok, that gets you as a far as the router.

Don't worry. Trust me. It only gets worse :)

So, you try to access the database using dak125.dyndns.org. That only gets you to the PUBLIC, or Internet, side of your router. Now you need a way to get that access request to the actual computer that is hosting the database.

To do this, you need to do a few things:

1. Set the target computer up with a STATIC IP address so it doesn't change on you.
2. Find the TCP/IP port that FileMaker uses for it's server. That should be documented with the product somewhere.
3. Set up the router.

In step 3 above, you will forward all incomming traffic to port XXXX (identified in the FileMaker documentation somewhere, I would think) to the static IP you assigned to your computer that is running the FileMaker software. This all gets you from the public side of your router, to the private side of your router.

All the above is if everything goes right :)

And that's a basic description of the process.
 
Larry,

Thanks much for the great explanation. The main problem is I don't have direct access to the router (there is no in house IT person in this building). I'm going to have to do more research as to who would be the person to open up the port for me.

Thanks again!
 
Since you have to contact IT support anyhow, it may be worthwhile to ask them about VPN. VPN would be a much more secure option in the long run than just opening up ports; people and businesses in particular are port-scanned all the time and an opening a port is like opening that database server to the entire world. VPN would provide a layer of authentication and then allow you to connect to the database as if you were on the same physical network.
 
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