The Error
While this example and blog post revolves around the Mac environment, it may be applicable to Windows and Linux also, although we have not confirmed this. If you log into your Mac, open the Terminal program and type one of the simplest FileMaker CLI commands, such as this one that retrieves version information:
fmsadmin -v
You should get a response something along the lines of this, although your version may be different and you'll be prompted for the FileMaker Server username and password which we're not going to worry about here.
FileMaker Server 19 Copyright(c) 1994-2020 Claris International Inc. All rights reserved. fmsadmin: Version 19.1.2
But underneath that you may also see this:
omniORB: (0) 2021-01-30 12:29:02.867829: Warning: SSL CA certificate location is not set. SSL transport disabled.
It's the kind of warning message that:
- We're not expecting
- Looks a bit worrying
- Is not documented anywhere
The Problem
At least one cause of the problem appears to be a permissions error related to the user logged into the Mac running the Terminal command. Let's say you have added an administrator user account to your Mac using the Users & Groups interface within System Preferences as below where we have created a new admin user named FileMaker Admin.
That user has the ability to administer the computer of course, but it's missing one key permissions setting. When FileMaker Server is installed, it creates a Group called fmsadmin, and our new admin user is not part of this group. The original admin user (or the one used to install FileMaker Server) will be part of this group and running the command under that user will not result in the omniORB warning.
The Solution
Now that we understand that the user simply needs to be part of the fmsadmin group, simple, we'll just open up the Users & Groups dialog again and add them... Err, except no groups are showing in the dialog, as above. So how do we add our FileMaker Admin user to the fmsadmin group then? We turn to our friend Terminal again!
If you don't have one already, open a Terminal window. Here's the plan:
- Get a list of all our groups to review and ensure we have fmsadmin listed (if we don't then we may have bigger problems!)
- Retrieve a list of all our users in the fmsadmin group
- Add our FileMaker Admin user to this group
- Confirm they were added
- Run our CLI command and see if we've fixed our error
Type this and hit enter:
dscl . list /groups
You'll get a long list of groups returned but in there somewhere you should find fmsadmin:
dialer everyone fmsadmin group interactusers
Great, we've found our group so let's see which users are currently in it. Type:
dscacheutil -q group -a name fmsadmin
And it will return something along the lines of:
name: fmsadmin password: * gid: 499 users: fmserver admin
Your list of users on the last line will likely be different, but we can see our FileMaker Admin user account is not there, so let's add it. Note we're using the Account Name below not the Full Name. You can confirm what your Account Name is by opening Finder and navigating to Macintosh HD > Users, although it will also be listed next to your Terminal commands too. If you want to use the Full Name of the account, you can but enclose it in double quotes.
sudo dseditgroup -o edit -a filemakeradmin -t user fmsadmin
You'll need to authenticate with the computer admin credentials. Now let's check if that user is in the group by typing this again (or tap the up arrow key on your keyboard a couple times):
dscacheutil -q group -a name fmsadmin
And now in that group we find:
name: fmsadmin password: * gid: 499 users: fmserver admin filemakeradmin
Finally, run your FileMaker Server CLI command once more and you should find that the omniORB warning is not there anymore.
fmsadmin -v
Summary
We're not really sure if the omniORB warning has any real world impacts in terms of security, but by adding the user to the fmsadmin group, not only have we eradicated the warning and any potential issue, this user now has the correct permissions to administer FileMaker Server just like the admin account used to install the software.
As a small side note, if you're using Zabbix or some other monitoring software, it's probable that you'll need to add that user to the fmsadmin group using the commands above.
We hope this has helped alleviate any concerns about this warning message and of course if you need any help, don't hesitate to contact us.
