Remote Deployment Advice

[CreativeDataPro]

Last year the company I work for upgraded to FileMaker 12 from FileMaker 11, and the upgrade went very smoothly. I managed the client installations on the Mac side, while our MIS team handled PC deployments. The only headache that we experienced on the rollout was needing to manually set each user's Favorite Hosts.

 

We've finished testing FMS13 and are planning to update the production server and clients soon, so does anyone know of a way to set a client Favorite Hosts remotely?

 

This company has 85+ FM users now, so any advice would be much appreciated!

 

Thanks in advance!

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Adam

[Lee Smith]

Automatic message

This topic has been moved from "FileMaker 13 General Discussion" to "FileMaker Server 13".

[Wim Decorte]

On Windows: they're stored in the registry so you can use VBscript or PowerShell to write it

On Mac: it is stored in a plist file so you could make a generic one and install it

[CreativeDataPro]

Awesome! Thanks, Wim. I knew you'd be able to help.

[Steven H. Blackwell]

Are the client computers on different subnets? If not, you can use Local Hosts instead.  The server will appear automatically.

 

Steven

[CreativeDataPro]

Most are, some aren't. I don't have a lot of experience automating PCs via VBScript, but I'm sure the MIS folks can handle that area while I knock out the Mac deployment. If we can't get VBScript to work, we'll plan to fall back on the Local Hosts option.

All I need to do for the Local Hosts to work is bind/register the server with the Active Directory, right? Or do I just need to configure the FM server via LDAP? It's a VM w/ Windows Server 2008 Std R2, if that matters.

[Wim Decorte]

All I need to do for the Local Hosts to work is bind/register the server with the Active Directory, right? Or do I just need to configure the FM server via LDAP? It's a VM w/ Windows Server 2008 Std R2, if that matters.

 

None of these.

 

For Local Hosts to work bot the server and the clients need to be on the same subnet and both need to have Bonjour installed.  Bonjour is a zero-configuration discovery tool.  Think of it as "scanning" the subnet for available hosts.

 

Binding/Joining the server with AD is for authenticating users

Registering the server with an AD or LDAP directory service is for letting users find the server through the LDAP option

[CreativeDataPro]

You guys are great. Thanks for the advice!

[CreativeDataPro]

On Windows: they're stored in the registry so you can use VBscript or PowerShell to write it On Mac: it is stored in a plist file so you could make a generic one and install it

Is there documentation on how to write these specific registry entries on Windows? I'm having trouble finding this info.

[Wim Decorte]

Not really, this is your normal OS-level scripting and not very FM specific.  You can sort of reverse engineering by looking at the registry for a user that has one or more favorite hosts established

[CreativeDataPro]

That's pretty much what I'm planning to do on the Mac side. I'll talk it over with the Windows support staff and they'll probably be able to assist without a problem. Thanks again for your advice and insight!