FmPro 8.5 sharing over VPN

[Greg Hains]

Hi.

I have seen some sort-of related posts to this question but not quite what Im seeking. I have a client with 3 copies of FmPro 8.5. 2 copies are running in their main office, and the 3rd copy in a remote office. We need to have that 3rd copy use a database shared in the main office.

We cannot use IWP as the functions will not work correctly.

I have setup a VPN from the remote office to the main office and can Ping the main sharing host and that same host is the DMZ (to reduce firewall issues).

I have tried to Open Remote but cannot seem to see the shared database. Perhaps its the way I'm using the syntax but I dont know. The host is 10.0.0.2 and I have tried the fmnet example displayed on the Open Remote screen with no luck.

Are there any special ports that need to be opened on the router?

On this note, is FmPro Server a better way to go? As the host machine also uses the database, can one have the server and FmPro 8.5 loaded on the same machine?

Please advise.

Greg

[jamesducker]

If you can ping 10.0.0.2 successfully it is most probably a router issue.

You need port 5003 open for both TCP and UDP connections. The most common error is opening 5003 for TCP only.

Designating the host as the DMZ not only leaves it wide open to other security flaws but possibly (depending on the router) only allows it TCP traffic, not UDP.

And yes, FM server is better. The ideal setup is a server which is a dedicated machine, running FileMaker server, that is *only* there to serve the database.

However if there are only three users you probably can't justify the expense of FM server. In your position I'd probably do the second best option, which is a dedicated machine running FileMaker CLIENT, that is only there to serve the database and which nobody actually uses to work on. (If nobody's doing anything else with the machine, it's very unlikely to crash and take your database with it.)

Frequent backups (and a test restore now and again) a must too, of course.

And a secured firewall ;-)

James

[Greg Hains]

Thanks for your reply James. I agree - Id' like to see a dedicated server doing the job (the network admin coming out in me), but being a small client with limited budget thought the current method is best. I dont like the DMZ option I have in place now, but its only to test it.

Can you tell me what ports I would need to redirect to make this work so I can close the DMZ?

Cheers,

Greg