Steven H. Blackwell

View File Addendum oAuth Extensibility Wim Decorte and I are pleased to release an Addendum to our recent White Paper entitled How FileMaker Developers Can Extend Authentication Options With New Additional OAuth2 Identity Providers In The FileMaker Platform. This Addendum has some additional technical details for FileMaker Platform developers and server administrators. It also has two Case Studies about where variations of these techniques are in place. Submitter Steven H. Blackwell Submitted 11/13/2019 Category White Papers FM Version  

View File How To Extend oAuth FileMaker® Server 16, introduced in April of 2017, brought with it the capability to use three oAuth2 Identity Providers to authenticate Identity Assertions made in attempts to access hosted FileMaker® Pro files. Google, Amazon, and Microsoft® Azure AD were the three Identity Providers. Since then various members of the developer community have sought ways to expand beyond those three providers to employ other Identity as a Service (IDaaS) options. Wim Decorte and I are pleased to advise that we have succeeded in an effort to expand the available Identity Provider services to additional systems. We have documented the underlying mechanism that FileMaker Server uses and have identified at least five new major IDaaS providers whose oAuth2 capabilities we can leverage to permit their use in the FileMaker Platform environment. We hope this means, among other items, that the FileMaker Platform can now be used at locations where heretofore it was disqualified due to lack of support of these Authentication options. We were aided in this endeavor to a substantial degree by assistance from Claris International, Inc. (formerly FileMaker, Inc.) working in a customer environment. This ratifies to a substantial degree the maxim postulated by well-known business author Tom Peters back in the 1970’s that “Innovation doesn’t come from the R&D Department; it comes from the customer base.” Submitter Steven H. Blackwell Submitted 10/09/2019 Category White Papers FM Version  

View File FileMaker18 Security Features The just-released new FileMaker® Pro 18 Advanced has two new security features about which developers should be aware. One of these is fairly straight-forward and extends functionality existing in earlier versions. The other is brand-new; it requires a nuanced understanding and careful consideration about its use. It allows management of certain Accounts by users who do not have [Full Access] Privileges, and thus it is a very significant change. Submitter Steven H. Blackwell Submitted 05/22/2019 Category White Papers FM Version Not Applicable  

Very good. Come back and ask more if you need to do so. That is why we are here. Steven H. Blackwell Platinum Member Emeritus, FileMaker Business Alliance

OK, first, are we talking about another FileMaker Pro file or some other type such as would be accessed via ESS? If this is a FileMaker Pro file, define a Privilege Set in it with appropriate controls. Then create an External Authenticated Account. Put users into a similarly named External Account in your file. Then place individual Accounts and passwords on the Domain Controller or in the Local Security Group area of your server. When you user logs in, the user gets rights to all files with matching group names. Steven H. Blackwell Platinum Member Emeritus, FIleMaker Business Alliance

View File SECURITY SCHEMA CHANGES IN FILEMAKER® PRO 11 AND FILEMAKER® PRO 11 ADVANCED The newly released versions of FileMaker Pro, FileMaker Pro Advanced, and FileMaker Server Advanced all have significant changes in their security features. The desktop client products have a new File Access Protection feature and new calculation functions related to Extended Privileges and Privilege Set Names. Additionally there is a change in the default Menu Commands option when developers create a new Privilege Set. FileMaker Server Advanced has some new features related to role-based administration of the FileMaker Server Advanced product; that is beyond the scope of this paper however. This paper will examine the new security features in FileMaker® Pro 11 and FileMaker® Pro 11 Advanced, with specific emphasis on the File Access Protection enhancements. Why were these changes needed? Why were they implemented? What are they? And, how do they work? Submitter Steven H. Blackwell Submitted 04/18/2019 Category White Papers FM Version 11  

Externally authenticated [Full Access] Accounts--and that is a bad idea--are not allowed to validate changes to the Security Schema. This is by design. Steven H. Blackwell Platinum Member Emeritus, FileMaker Business Alliance

Congratulations to Brad, and best wishes for an enjoyable retirement and many thanks for his years of service to Dominique P. Goupil. Steven H. Blackwell Platinum Member Emeritus, FileMaker Business Alliance

View File FileMaker Workplace Innovation Platform Security Building Blocks The FileMaker Workplace Innovation Platform has evolved over the past fifteen years since the release in 2004 of FileMaker® Pro 7 to encompass now a robust suite of security features to protect the Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, and Resilience of organizational data. This same set of Security Building Blocks also helps to provide protection to organizations from a wide variety of risks including business continuity, regulatory sanctions, criminal and civil liability, and reputational damage. Submitter Steven H. Blackwell Submitted 02/26/2019 Category White Papers FM Version 17