I just moved FileMaker Server from a MacOS 9 box, to a new server (XServe... very nice), and was surprized that there was no provision for automatically starting the FMP Server at boot-up, so I rolled my own using a StartupItem.
Read the rest of the hint for the how-to...
- First you have to create a folder in the proper place. I chose to create the folder /Library -> StartupItems -> FileMaker. The /Library -> StartupItems enclosing folder might not exist on your system; if it doesn't, just create it.
- You will need a file in this folder named StartupParameters.plist. Mine looks like this:
{ Description = "FileMaker Server"; Provides = ("FileMaker Databases"); Requires = ("Resolver"); Uses = ("Network Time"); Preference = "None"; Messages = { start = "Starting FileMaker Server"; stop = "Stopping FileMaker Server"; restart = "Restarting FileMaker Server"; }; } - You will also need another file named FileMaker in this folder. This one has some long lines, and in my file they are not broken, so you might want to do some editing. You will also need to give the script an appropriate user to run FileMaker Pro as. I would recomend not using the root user, both for security reasons and because the GUI tool provided by FileMaker does not seem to work. I am running it as my admin login. Also, I am putting in the path as it is on my system; if you have FileMaker installed somewhere else, you will need to adjust it:
#!/bin/bash . /etc/rc.common FMSLOCATION='/Applications/FileMaker Server 5.5/FileMaker Server Config.app/Contents/Resources' SERVERUSER='admin' StartService () { ConsoleMessage "Starting FileMaker Server" sudo -u $SERVERUSER "$FMSLOCATION"/fmserverd START -c "$FMSLOCATION"/fmserver.conf } StopService () { ConsoleMessage "Stopping FileMaker Server" sudo -u $SERVERUSER "$FMSLOCATION"/fmserverd STOP killall -1 fmserverd 2> /dev/null } RestartService () { ConsoleMessage "Restarting FileMaker Server" sudo -u $SERVERUSER "$FMSLOCATION"/fmserverd STOP sudo -u $SERVERUSER "$FMSLOCATION"/fmserverd START -c "$FMSLOCATION"/fmserver.conf } RunService "$1" - Now you will need to make sure that the permissions are correct on all of the items. At the command line type:
sudo chmod -r 755 /Library/StartupItems/FileMaker
Provide your password when asked.
sudo /Lilbrary/StartupItems/FileMaker/FileMaker startTo test stopping the server, just replace start in the above command with stop.

