User manual

Protecting databases with accounts and privilege sets 85
7. Open the file using different accounts and test each privilege set
that you created. Make sure the restrictions work the way you want,
and make any needed corrections to your privilege sets.
If you publish FileMaker Pro databases on the web, be sure to review
and implement the security guidelines described in the online
manual,
FileMaker Security Guide, available in the Electronic
Documentation folder (inside the English Extras folder). Updates to
this document are available as downloads from www.filemaker.com.
Password-protecting a file
If you have a non-shared database file on your computer and you
want to prevent others from opening it, you can password-protect the
file.
After password-protecting a file, you will be prompted to enter an
account name and password every time you open the file. Anyone
who does not know this account information will not be able to open
the file.
To password-protect a file:
1. Make the following changes to the accounts in the file:
1 Edit the Admin account so that it has a different account name,
a password, and uses the Full Access privilege set.
1 Make sure the Guest account is inactive.
1 Delete any other accounts in the file or make them inactive.
2. If necessary, edit the Full Access privilege set to allow yourself
any extended privileges you may want for yourself.
Don’t enable extended privileges unless they’re needed.
Suggestions for creating secure passwords
1 Secure passwords are typically eight or more characters in length,
and include at least one numeric character.
1 If the file is shared via web publishing, account names and
passwords can only use characters included in the ISO Latin-1
character set (except colons). To avoid characters that may be
interpreted incorrectly over the web, you may want to limit account
names and passwords to alphabetic and numeric characters only.
For more information about protecting FileMaker Pro databases, see
Help.
Creating accounts and privilege sets
Accounts specify account names and (usually) passwords for a file.
When a user opens a file that contains accounts, a dialog box prompts
the user to enter account information. When a user opens a file with
a correct account name and password, the privilege set assigned to
that account determines what the user can do in that file.
Privilege sets specify levels of access to a database, such as which
layouts are viewable, which menus are available, and whether
printing is permitted.
To create and manage accounts and privilege sets for a file, you need
to open the file with an account that is assigned the Full Access
privilege set.
You can create and modify accounts and privilege sets in a shared
file while clients are using it. (In FileMaker Pro 6 and earlier, all
clients had to close the shared file before you could change
passwords and groups.) The account changes you make take effect
immediately. However, the changes do not disrupt any current
clients. For example, if you change the password for an account that
is in use by one or more clients, their FileMaker Pro usage is not
interrupted. However, they will need to enter the new password the
next time they open the file.
You can create as many accounts as you need. You can create
individual accounts for each user, or a smaller number of accounts
that users can share.