How to connect remote computers to the database?

Follow the steps described in this article when you want to connect remote computers (like your home computer) to the database located on a computer at your office. 

Please note that to configure a remote connection to your database, it is recommended to use the
services of an IT or at least someone that is comfortable navigating within your router's settings.

Consider our Database Hosting Service

If you dont want to bother with port forwarding setup described in this article, we can host your database in the cloud for you. See this article for details.

Before we start...

At this stage, we assume that you already have Vehicle Fleet Manager 5.0 installed in your main office. If it's not the case, see this article to learn how to setup Vehicle Fleet Manager 5.0 on your local network.

Please note that the database server computer (the computer that hosts the database) must be running for client computers to be able to access the database. If you think you should move the database to another computer, you should do it now. See this article to learn how to move your database to another computer.

Setup Procedure

If the database server computer is behind a router (which is generally the case), you will have to do a port forwarding on your router for port 3307 (this is the port used by the MariaDB database server). It means that all communications entering port 3307 on your router must be forwarded to the database server computer.

You will have to find your router's documentation to find out how to configure a port forwarding. You can also refer to this website which contains great resources : http://portforward.com/english/routers/port_forwarding/routerindex.htm 

Once it's done, you will be able to access the database from remote devices using the IP address instead of the name of the database server. You can use Dynamic DNS if you dont have a static IP but it may affect performances.

Now, to connect to your database server from a remote computer, just go to this menu and type in the IP of your router: