Administrator’s Guide

28 FileMaker Server Administrator’s Guide
Step 4. Verify databases are available to
FileMaker clients
To verify that databases were opened when FileMaker Server started
and are available to FileMaker clients, check that:
1 the status of files listed in the Databases view is Normal
1 you can open remote files in FileMaker Pro
To check the status of files listed in the Databases view:
1. Connect to a server. See “Connecting to FileMaker Server using
FileMaker Server Admin” on page 48 for more information.
2. In FileMaker Server Admin, select the Databases node (Windows)
or click the
Databases button (Mac OS).
When FileMaker Server starts, it automatically opens and hosts all
FileMaker
Pro databases located in the default database folder and in
an additional database folder, if specified. Those databases should be
listed as
Normal in the Status column.
If you added files to the default database folder after startup, those
files are listed as
Closed and you must open them manually.
3. If the status of a database is Closed, select the database, then choose
Action menu > Open (Windows) or Action menu > Databases > Open
Database
(Mac OS).
It may take several minutes to open a large file. As FileMaker Server
opens files that were not closed properly or have not been opened in a
FileMaker 8 product, FileMaker Server performs a consistency check
on each file and logs the result of the check in the event log.
You can also open a database at the command prompt (Windows) or
Terminal (Mac
OS). See “Using the command line to automate tasks”
on page 54 for more information.
Tip If a folder containing databases is closed, double-click the folder.
If databases are not visible, it may be necessary to refresh the
Databases view. Select the
Databases node (Windows) or click the
Databases button (Mac OS), then choose Action menu > Refresh
(Windows) or
Action menu > Databases > Refresh View (Mac OS).
To verify that a database is usable from a client computer:
1. Launch FileMaker Pro or FileMaker Pro Advanced.
2. Choose File menu > Open Remote.
3. Select Local Hosts from the View menu, and choose your server
from the list. The name of the database should appear in the column
on the right.
If the database is not listed, review the preceding hosting steps.