FileMaker Server for Linux Developer Preview Information

[Ocean West]

https://support.claris.com/s/article/FileMaker-Server-for-Linux-Developer-Preview-Information?language=en_US

[DataCruncher]

I CANNOT wait for this. Forcing us into either Windows or a Mac Virtual instance on server hardware is pretty unacceptable for an Apple-affiliated company. 

FMS was meant to run on native Linux all along. 

[comment]

Claris is owned by Apple, not affiliated with it. If it were, it would probably not give you the option to use Linux or Windows. 

 

[Wim Decorte]

2 hours ago, DataCruncher said:

FMS was meant to run on native Linux all along. 

 

And it did for a while (FMS 5.5) but not enough people started using to warrant the ongoing development and support... so it seems like your "unacceptable" was perfectly acceptable to many.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Wim Decorte

[Tony Diaz]

On 5/20/2020 at 1:03 PM, Wim Decorte said:

And it did for a while (FMS 5.5) but not enough...

That explains why I ... remember that being an option but not when I actually went to look into it.

I recall seeing a demo at COMDEX.. and a few years later when I actually wanted to do it. Bzzzzt.

OTOH,  this will be nice .. maybe light a fire under hosting prices..

Unmanaged VPS instances are dirt cheap...  Roll Your Own server, instead of having to use a VM with FMS running in it.

[Wim Decorte]

Not having to to pay for the Windows license part of a virtual machine will definitely make a difference, but the more horsepower you need the less it make a difference.

This I don't understand:

4 hours ago, Tony Diaz said:

Roll Your Own server, instead of having to use a VM with FMS running in it.

A FM VPS is nothing but a VM with FMS running on it so I don't get the distinction you're making here.  If you mean having FMS as an appliance, containerized (Docker,...): then yes, it's possible.  A few of us have already done that.

[Tony Diaz]

That's what I mean. .. except that said VPS is typically Linux and you've got a whole Windows or OSX instance running inside of that space.. that requires VirtualBox (Piece of crap) or Commercial solutions to run the VMWare image.. so you can't be too stingy on the VPS resources .. ya may as well just go with FM hosting. But no one has a plan that suits "one guy messing around with a personal project" that he might let a few others use via Web Publishing to browse / edit data, not the fmp12 file itself. 

So, yeah, just commenting out loud.. otherwise thinking the same thing.

[ggt667]

On 5/20/2020 at 10:03 PM, Wim Decorte said:

 

And it did for a while (FMS 5.5) but not enough people started using to warrant the ongoing development and support... so it seems like your "unacceptable" was perfectly acceptable to many.

Mine still runs on Debian 10 chrooted in VM BHYVE

On 5/25/2020 at 12:40 PM, Wim Decorte said:

Not having to to pay for the Windows license part of a virtual machine will definitely make a difference, but the more horsepower you need the less it make a difference.

What you write does not make sense to me; the overhead of running Windows is still significant AFAIK. I will run new benchmarks once FM19S for linux is released.

FM19S linux runs fine on a Joyent SmartOS LX zone CentOS  flavour( about 249.9 MB full system image ) + prerequisites( the stuff you have to yum prior to installing FileMaker server, i e ) to my knowledge. 

Prerequisites( for CentOS Joyent LX zone ) below

```BASh

yum install wget unzip rh-nodejs10 centos-release-scl-rh  httpd24 && yum install filemaker_server-19.0.1-21.x86_64.rpm

```

P S Some CentOS installs already have httpd24 installed from before.

Edited May 27, 2020 by ggt667

[Wim Decorte]

11 hours ago, ggt667 said:

FM19S linux runs fine on a Joyent SmartOS LX zone CentOS

It really isn't about whether FMS - the software / its processes - can run fine on any given spec of machine; it's whether the machine's resources, through FMS, can handle the tasks it is asked to perform.  So picking any random hardware kit and declaring "see, FMS runs fine on it" is totally irrelevant.  It's how a lot of deployments get in trouble.  And I see a lot of them.

The number of cores, the core speed, and the disk i/o speed need to be be picked based on what the FM solution requires, not what FMS requires.

[ggt667]

If that's all you are asking then fine by me. In my experience one can run half the amount of cores in linux compared to windows to have same performance, in which means more stuff can be done on the same hardware. Also with a leaner OS there will be more resources freed up for core business.

FileMaker may be an exception? What do I know.

Not to mention the tools that are built into the system, like ssh / rsync / tar / gzip for backup purposes. For Windows I had to install something like Resilio for copying backup to separate location.

Edited May 27, 2020 by ggt667

[genious]

If I remember correctly, back in the days of Filemaker 5 there was a linux server made for use as a ready for use machine.  Is there anything like that being made today?

[ggt667]

9 hours ago, genious said:

a ready for use machine.

What does this mean? There was an RPM back then.

[genious]

There was a piece of tin, all set up, I’m not sure was FMs installed or not, but you basically plugged it in and it was ready for use.  From what I remember it was not expensive and worked very well because it was Linux

[ggt667]

Sounds like a linux installation with sshd, FileMaker 5.5 Server, Samba or Netatalk. Can be done today as well, with Samba4 you will have a fully operational AD that is not Microsoft contaminated.

[genious]

There is a business there for someone to sell this server With FM19.  I’m sure people could get one out the door for a couple of thousand ready to use.  Most people including me don’t want the hassle of setting up Linux, as they don’t know it.  The only thing they will want on it will be FileMaker server.

[Wim Decorte]

There was a LAN-in-a-can Toshiba machine sold by New Millennium that was a Linux server, a switch, a web interface to install and configure FMS.  It was pretty neat for its day.

In the future we'll see variations of that, there will be Docker and other containerized appliances, automated installers, AWS CloudFormation,... all of those things are going to be obvious choices.

Whether someone will actually produce physical hardware with FMS as an appliance: I doubt it.