File Operations
There are three main operations that you can perform on a file via OttoDeploy: Migrate, Install, and Replace. Each operation is described below. Note that "Close" is also a file operation, but it is exposed in OttoDeploy via the "Close Additional Files" setting.
Migrate
In a migration, data from the destination file will be migrated into a clone of the file from the source. This is useful if you want to make changes to the schema of a file and need to migrate the destination data into the new schema. This will be the most used file operation if you are using OttoDeploy to migrate changes from a development environment to a production environment. Additional options can be configured for each file, such as which file OttoFMS will pull the accounts, value lists, and fonts from. These additional options can be seen in the file options menu.
The destination credentials for migrations are not required to be full access credentials. They only need to have migration privileges to run the migration successfully. Please note: If using a migration privilege set to run migrations, the output logs will have significantly reduced verbosity. This is a limitation of the migration privilege in FileMaker Server.
Migration File Options
Each file in a migration has additional options that can be configured in the file options menu. These options control where OttoFMS will pull certain resources from during the migration:
- Accounts Source — which file to pull accounts from (source or destination)
- Value Lists Source — which file to pull value lists from (source or destination)
- Fonts Source — which file to pull fonts from (source or destination)
- Destination Locale — the locale file used by the Data Migration Tool during the migration
Destination Locale
By default, OttoFMS uses the destination server's locale when running migrations with the FileMaker Data Migration Tool. You can override this by selecting a specific locale from the dropdown in the file options menu.
If you need to use a custom locale file that is not in the dropdown, you can enter an absolute file path to a locale file on the destination server. This path is passed directly to the Data Migration Tool's --locale option.
The "English" locale option refers to US English. If you need any other variant of English (e.g. British English, Australian English), you will need to add a custom locale file.
If you upload your locale to the OttoFMS Config folder in the File Browser, you can access your file at path/to/ottofms-folder/config/my-file.txt. See OttoFMS File Paths for the exact config directory path on each operating system.
Install
An install will copy a file from the source that does not exist on the destination. This is the operation that OttoFMS uses to install OttoDeploy onto your server. You can specify the destination folder in the file options.
Replace
A replace will copy an entire file from the source and replace the target file on the destination. This process is similar to the install operation, but it will overwrite the file on the destination rather than creating a new file.
Install/Replace
The install/replace operation is a combination of the install and replace operations. This operation will copy the file from the source to the destination, but if the file already exists on the destination, it will be replaced.