Best Configuration?

[Ewarrior]

I'm hoping someone could offer some advice on the best configuration for serving Filemaker Pro 7 files. I want to serve the files mainly to the employees on the office lan. I also want to have one file(s) served via instant web publishing for customers to view their inventories. I'm concerned about security. I already have a dedicated Filmaker Pro 7 Server box (PowerMac G4, Mac OS X 10.3.5) serving the files to my lan. The server and lan is hidden behind a router doing NAT and the router's firewall. I have some static public IP addresses available for customers to access a database via the web.

1) Would you add a separate Filemaker Pro 7 Server Advanced box (in addition to the hidden Server 7 box) on the public IP address? I guess the public Server Advanced files would have to connect or reference the private Server files for the data to be up to date. Is that possible? Is this overkill?

2) Or would you just have one public Server Advanced box serving files for both the lan and the web? The Server Advanced box would then be naked on the web. I would then just be relying on passwords to protect the non instant web published files. Sounds like a security problem.

Cost is not a factor (I'd be willing to buy Apple G5 Xserves) so I'm curious what configurations you can suggest. Thanks in advance.

[Reed]

I think you can put just the web publishing engine of server advanced on a separate machine...

Is this right? anyone....? Bueller....?

Even if they were on the same box, you could use your firewall to block access to the filemaker sharing port (5003). That way no one outside could see the files shared via network sharing. If you share one file via web, you could use port 591 instead of 80 to hide a little better for that file.

I have one file for everthing (web and lan) that uses a startup script to direct users to the proper layout depending on how they are connecting (browser or fmp) Also, I set up extended privileges so that only accounts with minimal privileges can have access via the web. And I've shut off all extended privileges to the full access account, so one can only have full access if the file is opened in single user mode locally.

[Ewarrior]

Thanks for the response! The extended privileges feature sounds like the way to go to help protect the database.

[Ender]

Check out the tech brief on FMI's site titled: "Upgrading to FileMaker 7: How to benefit from powerful new web publishing capabilities"

http://www.filemaker.com/upgrade/techbriefs.html

It has info about different configurations for FM Server Advanced.