School FileMaker Server

-- Main.iturner - 15 Nov 2007

see ST#58579

The Windows Server is danae.cs, with a synonym scsfm1.cs.

• The server is now patched and up to date, it keeps itself updated automatically using IST's SUS server. Also, it is now a member of the CS-GENERAL domain. Installed Windows Defender and FireFox 2.0.

• The server has two identical internal hard drives so mirroring of the main system drive (C:) is established.

• Mounted usb drive as F: named FMBackups; formatted

• Turned off Indexing service for both C: and F: drives per FileMaker recommendation

• Verified with Clayton that Symantec is not normally on servers - again FM recommends "not"

• Software install started - FileMaker will install Java runtime 6 as part of the process (required)

• Download version update from 9.01 to 9.02 to 9.03 (March 2008)
• Configured FM server to autostart at boot, and to require ssl on FileMaker Client traffic

• fmsadmins group in AD can run Java Webstart Admin App remotely; obtain from http://danae.cs.uwaterloo.ca:16000 (requires Java 5 or 6 on workstation)
• The framework is in place to have AD authentication of all users, and AD Groups to match assigned roles within each database.

• See also ST#60632; added PostgreSQL odbc driver to danae.cs and configured system DSN

• Enabled File Maker Scheduled backups to f:/Filemaker/data/; even hours from 08:00 - 20:00, each to a separate directory, so effectively retained online for 24 hours; odd daytime hours to one rolling directory, so retained for 2 hours; daily on a 7 day retention schedule. Any damaged database can thus be recovered with no more than an hour's loss. Just "close" the database, and copy from the backup directory to the "live" one, then restart that database.

• Installed Legato Networker for System recovery - all of C: except the active databases (C:/Program Files/FileMaker/Filemaker Server/Data/Databases), since open databases cannot be reliably saved by off-line backup; and all of F:, so all the on-line backups are also saved off-line. This is intended to provide Disaster Recovery; install a basic system, install Legato, and "recover" - must get system Drive, and full system, including state:

• • ASR:

• • SYSTEM FILES:

• • SYSTEM DB:

• • SYSTEM STATE:

• • F:

• • C:

Client Setup

see ST#79461

• start Filemaker (current version in use is 9)
• add scsfm1.cs.uwaterloo.ca to "favorite hosts"
  • login to server - change user long name to short name, click "remember password"
  • login to specific database "graddb"; again get it to memorize in keychain - short-username+password
  • logout; then
• re-start Filemaker
  • open recent
    • pops up the panel about date formats
    • choose "use file setting" NOT "use system settings"