Remote open from home

[peronn]

Hey,

I have a solution at work where an FM7 solution is used on a local network. One of the computer ( total 4) has the file open and the other use open remote to acess it. This computer is hooked up to a router which in turn connects to the internet via ADSL.

Shouldn't i then be able to open that file remotly from my home as long as it's running at work?

One of the problems is that i can't find what IP-adress that computer has. If i use IPCONFG in dos i will only get the IP that it uses in local network. How can i find the IP adress that that computer uses when accessinng internet?

And where do i enter that information? If this is possible to do :

[CyborgSam]

This is network geek-talk technical, let me know if anything needs to be clarified more.

A router usually does NAT (Network Address Translation). This allows the computers in the local area network (LAN) to all use a single IP # on the Internet side of the router (WAN). The LAN should use standard IP numbers reserved for local LANs: 192.168.*.*, 10.*.*.*, or 172.16.*.*.

Communications from the LAN to the WAN are simple, the router simply changes the "return address" of a packet so it'll know which computer on the LAN to send reply packets from the WAN to.

Anything that needs to be directed from the WAN to a particular computer in the LAN needs to be setup in the router, this is called Port Forwarding. For FileMaker to be accessible outside of the LAN, the router needs to forward port 5003 (both TCP and UDP) to the FileMaker computer. Also, the router needs to be setup so that the FileMaker computer always gets the same IP address from DHCP (or has a static IP Address).

Be forewarned: security is lower when a computer is directly connected to the Internet. If the FileMaker computer has any confidential info, be very, very cautious.

Does someone onsite know how to setup the router? If not, and you have access to the router, let me know what brand & model it is, I may be able to talk you through this. If so, tell them that the router needs to forward port 5003 (both TCP and UDP) to the FileMaker computer.

[lance123]

I have a similar issue.

I have been able to find out my IP address. I used the system profiler which is launched from about this mac under the apple menu. (This got me the info on system 10.2.8 but did not seem to give the same info on later systems.)

I am using an airport and tried setting up a port that added the IP address (as above) and 5003. It did not want to accept this port number saying it is already in use.

What role does the IP address that comes with the DSL Modem play? Do you need to use that somewhere or does it just route through the airport?

Thanks for any further information.

[Fenton]

I don't know a whole lot about networks, but I collect and modify various methods to find things out. This is an AppleScript which runs a shell script to get the current external IP. It appears that once you have a router you must get this from an external source. I imagine there are others for other things.

set ip_external to do shell script "curl http://checkip.dyndns.org | awk '{print $6}' | cut -d'<' -f1"

or, if that doesn't work ('cause I wrote the last part -)

set ip_external to do shell script "curl www.whatismyip.com/ | grep "Your IP" | awk '{print $4}'"

set ip_external to word 1 of ip_external

Also, go to http://www.versiontracker.com I don't know about PCs, but there are a couple of freeware OS X apps that will do such things as show you your external IP in the Menu Bar, as well as send you an email whenever your DNS changes, etc..

Edited September 19, 2005 by Guest

[CyborgSam]

What role does the IP address that comes with the DSL Modem play?

The IP of the DSL modem is your unique IP on the whole Internet. This is the IP you would use when accessing the database away from home.

It appears that once you have a router you must get this from an external source

Most DSL/Cable modems and routers are configured using a web browser from the LAN (the inside network).

For DSL/Cable modems, read the manual to find the address to access this web page. If you don't have a manual, Google the make & model with terms like configure, chances are you'll find it quickly.

The router's internal IP address can be found on a Mac using the Network System Preference. In Tiger, make the Show popup say Network Status and then look at the address. I forget exactly how Jaguar displayed this info...

On a PC, go to Start>Accessories>Command Prompt. When the prompt comes up, enter:

ipconfig /all

Look for the line Default Gateway.

I am using an airport and tried setting up a port that added the IP address (as above) and 5003.

Does your Aiport plug directly into the DSL modem? I'm not sure why you're getting the error. I have an Airport but it connects to my LAN, not the Internet. I can get into it and tell you how to configure it if the AirPort Admin Utility is too confusing.

[lance123]

Hi Guys,

Thanks very much for all this info. I now have a number of things to try. The info from Fenton looks like part of what I need it makes sense that you have to have the ip of the mac that is hosting the db somewhere in there, and the 10.0....internal address is maybe not the 'real' one. I can also get the ip of my computer which does not change, I think!? I can easily get the ip of my DSL modem and found that through the its web page as you suggested Sam.

My airport is connected to the DSL modem directly then radio to other computers. The computer hosting the db is on a computer with a 10.0....address dynamically allocated by the airport. (radio connection) It can be set to not change by the airport admin or even pluged directly into the airport ethernet.

I think if I just new where to put what IP addresses I would be ok. I can get into airport admin and have configured / opened ip's and ports, but no go.

[CyborgSam]

Lance->

I got mine to work OK.

Go into the Airport Admin Utility & Configure your Airport.

On the Networking tab, the distribute IP Addresses should be checked and the radio button Share a single IP address (using DHCP and NAT) should be selected. The popup lets you choose a subnet, yours is 10.0 something.

On the Port Mapping tab, FileMaker needs to be entered. Click Add. In both the Public Port and Private Port fields enter 5003. In the private address, enter the last digit of your Mac's IP # (you get this in the Network System Preference by double-clicking the Airport line and then clicking the TCP/IP tab).

Restart the Airport and it should work! Let us know if it doesn't...

[lance123]

Hi Sam,

I just wanted to give some feedback on your excellent help! I found that I only need to open up port 591 on the Airport. The problem I did run into was a changing dsl IP number. I now have a 'static' IP. To link to the db I just use the static IP:port along with the normal IWP home page cgi. It is working really well.

Thanks so much for your support.

Regards,

Lance

[CyborgSam]

Lance->

Thanks!

Another way around changing IPs is the free service from DynDNS.org. A domain name is applied to the IP you specify. Some routers can automatically update DynDNS' records when their IP changes, unfortunately the Airport does not. The address would have to updated manually, so if it changes when you're travelling you're SOL.

[raycock]

I have a similar problem. I was using Filemaker Pro 7 and have since upgraded to Filemaker Pro 8 Advanced. When using Filemaker Pro 7, I was able to access the host computer through the network (via the internet). Since the upgrade to Filemaker Pro 8 Advanced, I am unable to do so. Everything is the same except the Filemaker versions. Filemaker Sharing is turned on and the file that I am sharing is marked for everyone to share. Any ideas on this will be greatly appreciated.

[CyborgSam]

Did the host get updated to 8 also?

Is the router/firewall setup to send FileMaker traffic from the WAN to the FileMaker host on the LAN? Could the host's IP address on the LAN have changed?

[raycock]

CyborgSam,

Everything is the same. IP Address, same router, just updated the Host computer to version 8 and now am unable to connect. I have the file shared as in version 7. Don't know where to go from here.

[CyborgSam]

Raycock->

Is FileMaker 7 still on your PC? If so, try launching it and see if it still works. Note that only 1 version of FileMaker can be running at any time...

[raycock]

Got it working now. Had to re-install it. Something weird was going on it. Anyhow, it's working now.

[crebma]

Hello, all! I, too, want to serve my databases so that my boss (who lives 70 miles away) can get in!

I set up the router to forward to port 5003 (tcp AND udp), and it still goes nowhere. we have a static ip address, which we just got for exactly this purpose. Do I have to change anything in FileMaker? I have both network sharing on and IWP on.

Am I missing something important here?

Thanks,

Amber

[CyborgSam]

Amber->

Have you allowed port 5003 in the Mac OS X firewall? This is accessed via the Sharing System Preference.

[crebma]

Yes I have; I set it up exactly like your screenshot. One thing I may have forgotten to mention, as that between the computer and the modem is a firewall and a switch. I set the firewall up to forward both tcp and udp on port 5003 to the local address of the filemaker machine.

Thank you for a response, I was wondering if I shouldn't have started my own thread given the date on this one.

Amber

[CyborgSam]

If the switch is separate from the firewall, perhaps it needs to be configured to pass non-standard ports (like 5003). I'd verify (if possible since you have a static IP) that a computer on the same LAN as FM can access the databases OK.

[crebma]

It is possible for another computer on the local network to access the database on the FileMaker computer through the open remote dialog, but that, of course, uses the internal address and not the static. When I enter the static ip and filename, it says the host is not available.

As far as the switch goes, I'm not one hundred percent sure how to even get into the switch; I don't believe it has an address so that I can access it through the browser. I have quite minimal network experience; just home networking and basic networking here. But I have not yet had to deal with the switch.

[crebma]

Actually, it works great! I was trying to test it from another computer on the same local network, which apparently, it doesn't like. But I went home and gave it a shot, and it works perfectly now! Thanks for everything!

Amber

[hpw]

still doesn't work with me. i got our it supporter into it. we got a new router, configured it to forward port 5003.

we have a dynamic ip, we have an account at dynDNS and the service works. We can access the PC with the FM Server through Internet (ftp). Only accessing it through FM Pro client does not work. no way. I tried from different computers, Windows XP and MacOS X operated, through different Internet connections. I even tried using the current IP number.

What else can I do?

Access within the LAN works great, no problems there.

[mr_vodka]

have you checked the software firewalls as well on all the computers?

[hpw]

Well, it even works for me now! We changed some things in our network and changed to vdsl and got a fix IP address. Now it works without problems.

With this changes we also moved from a motorola to a zyxel router where we were able to configure the firewall to open port 5003. Somehow I couldn't configure the firewall on the two routers we had before. Maybe that did the trick.