The Guest Account: Risks and Uses
BeginnerWhen enabling the Guest account is appropriate, how to lock it down, and why it is dangerous when misused.
What you'll learn
- What the Guest account does and when it is appropriate
- How to enable and configure the Guest account safely
- Minimum-privilege principles for Guest access
- WebDirect Guest access use cases
The Guest account lets users open a FileMaker file without entering credentials. It is disabled by default and should stay that way unless you have a deliberate, documented reason to enable it. When you do enable it, the privilege set you assign to Guest defines what unauthenticated users can do -- and that scope must be minimal.
Enabling the Guest account
In File > Manage > Security, the Guest account appears at the top of the account list as a special entry. Check the "Active" checkbox to enable it. Assign it a privilege set -- by default it inherits [Read-Only Access] but you should create a dedicated "GuestAccess" privilege set tailored to exactly what unauthenticated users need.
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