FM15 Server, Virtual Hosts, 1 Box

[Hammerton]

Every time I upgrade FM I lose functionality. This time, it seems that FM15 Server does not play nice with OS X Server 5. I have the latest versions of each. OS X is finding my virtual hosts just fine but installing FM15 Server breaks that. All virtual hosts display the FILEMAKER DATABASE splash screen.

I read a long post about this problem relating to 13/15. Any new insights or workarounds for 15?

Thanks

[DaMayan]

Well tbh that hasn't been supported for a while now. It might be time to accept that and use a dedicated FileMaker Server.

I have stopped doing this and tbh it was kind of an unstable setup, every update or installation could break it. To set it up you have to do a certain order of editing vhosts, opening ports and restarting the machine/apache/FMS...

[Buckie]

Are you talking about the websites hosted by the Server.app? I had no problems with that setup at all in FMS15. Use different ports and set up another website with a redirect.

[Hammerton]

Buckie,

   Thanks. This is an interesting idea. I may not even have to do that. I could just use the alternate ports in the php connection file. 

    However, the last time I installed FMS 15 I set ports other than 80/443 and it still messed up my ability to connect to my virtual host webpages. I install server app set everything up including the virtual hosts. Check access to my pages. Everything is fine. Install FMS 15 with ports 8001 and 8011, and nothing works, I get a requested page not found error. When I type just the basic domain names for the machine or the virtual hosts I get the filemaker server splash screen.

 

 

Edited June 19, 2016 by Hammerton

[Buckie]

Try using different ports, I used 8055 and 8056. Try telling FMS to use its own PHP when installing. And before reinstalling rename or remove the entire FileMaker Server folder (not forgetting to back up what's necessary).

Really it just shouldn't misbehave that way. They use different httpd instances that use different ports so it may be a port conflict where you happen to hit a port used by the Server.app so its httpd wouldn't start after FMS's httpd had already started. What happens if you disable the FMS web sharing after the problem appears? Do your normal websites start working again as expected? When the problem happens what's the output of

ps waux | grep httpd

[Hammerton]

So, after a lot of futzing around here's where I stand.

I got a second mac-mini. And I did a two machine deployment of FMS15, using ports 8055/8056. This solved the original problem - namely, installing FMS15 this way did not mess up web access to the  site files over ports 80/443. 

I have tried to install RESTfm to help simplify the development of my php pages, but it seems to be confused by the two machine set-up.

Can I set up the second machine with a single machine FMS15 deployment, just as I would if I was using a third-party FMS provider?

[Wim Decorte]

14 hours ago, Hammerton said:

I have tried to install RESTfm to help simplify the development of my php pages, but it seems to be confused by the two machine set-up.

It shouldn't be, I have RESTfm in use in quite a few 2-machine deployments.  What kind of errors are you getting.

14 hours ago, Hammerton said:

Can I set up the second machine with a single machine FMS15 deployment, just as I would if I was using a third-party FMS provider?

I don't understand the question in the perspective of the rest of the post.  If you set up an additional machine with a single-machine deployment then you have a 2nd FMS with its web publishing engine and web server...  How do you see that fit in with your original FMS + worker machine?

[Hammerton]

Hi Wim,

Thanks for your kind reply. What I want to do is to continue a system that had been working beautifully for years. I had a one machine set up, I used apple OS X server to set up various things like virtual hosts, email, etc, and used FMS11 for php based websites that I used to collect research data and to build course websites. 

I recently upgraded my machine to El Capitan, installed the newest version of OS X server, and FMS15. After installing the OS X server all my websites were accessible as they had been. When I installed FMS15, it apparently swipes ports 80 & 443. I read somewhere where I could use alternate port names, but this isn't work. I also read that it might work with a 2 machine set-up. I know that is more secure a set-up so I didn't mind getting another machine. I installed FMS15 as a worker on the machine with OS X server, and as the master on the new box, using alternative ports. This seemed to do the trick. The php pages were loading, though none of the connectivity with the databases via php files was working. FMPro client access to the databases was working and the admin console indicated that the install was good. When I run the php test from the FMS admin console on the Master, it returns the correct display of the sample data on a php page, listing the worker IP address in the URL. 

To mess with the connectivity I tried changing the connection.php files, using the IP of the worker, the IP of the master, the alternate ports, the 80/443 ports, and could get no love. I assumed this had to do with the fact that the FMStudio solutions I had been running didn't work with the new FM API. That's what prompted me to look into RESTfm. In the attached file the results are from a test of RESTfm run from the Master machine localhost:[port#]/

So, I guess I really don't know anything. I don't know how to install RESTfm. It seems like it needs to be installed on the machine where the PHP files live, but in the two machine FMS installation that machine doesn't have all the stuff RESTfm needs, but neither does the Master machine. If you could give me a simple overview of what goes where in a 2 machine set-up, I'd be indebted.

 

RESTfm report_Redacted.pdf

[Hammerton]

Actually, please don't waste your time. I can't afford the time or money on Filemaker anymore. I will learn and deploy a mysql php solution. Loyal filemaker customer since FM6. Out.

[Wim Decorte]

This article on virtual hosts was updated about a week ago, maybe it will help: http://thebrainbasket.com/?p=485

I understand your frustrating with change, but it is what it is... between OS changes and FM platform changes, we can't expect things to work as they have been years ago.   That's the nature of the business.  Heck it's why we try things out on sandboxes right?

36 minutes ago, Hammerton said:

 I will learn and deploy a mysql php solution.

 

Don't expect things to work the same between different PHP versions and mysql versions.  Things change, get deprecated,...