Troubleshooting Remote Server Configurations

Using Server Assistant to do remote installations and configurations is usually easy, but what if it goes wrong?

A couple of quick and easy things to check when using Server Assistant to manage remote server installs.

While Server Assistant usually does a good job about finding and configuring remote servers, there's certainly the possibility that the whole thing might just barf on you. Fortunately the problems are usually pretty easy to work around.

Just find the @#$#% thing!

Usually the first problem that smacks you square between the eyes is not being able to find the unfinished servers in the first place. By far the most common reason for this is that you didn't actually install the Admin tools on your admin machine. Just copying over the /Applications/Server/ directory isn't enough. To get the Bonjour searching goodness you need to actually install the Admin Tools package which will put the sa_srchr utility in /System/Library/ServerSetup/ where Server Assistant can reach it.

Keep in mind that you are more then welcome to run sa_srchr on your own, but usually if it comes to that you'll probably still have issues. But take heart gentle admin there are still some options.

The unconfigured server will attempt a DHCP lease, so if you run the DHCP server on the network you can look in the logs and see what IP the server got. Just look for the server's MAC address in the logs. Also you could set the DHCP to give out a static lease to the server, so you'd know for sure what IP it was going to get before you even turned it on.

Otherwise you can sniff the network traffic and listen for DHCP discovers from the server and then figure out what IP it gets leased.

If the is no DHCP on the network, or I'm just using a cross-over cable to connect to the server, I bail on the whole automagic discovery and just ping the Bonjour broadcast IP

ping 169.254.255.255

which should return all of the machines on the LAN that have only Bonjour IP's. Just find the one that isn't yours and plug it into the Server Assistant GUI.

Now for the @#$%*!# password!

Once you have the IP, you'll need to authenticate. Most admins know the password on anything made in the last few years is the first 8 characters of the hardware serial number. That's all good...if you know the serial number.

Some places to look if you've mislaid your number.

1. On the box that the machine came in should be a sticker with the MAC address, write this down but it's not the password, and the hardware serial number. Smart admins have a USB barcode scanner just for this purpose so they can capture this information directly into their inventory management apps.

2. On the back of the Xserve, or other Apple kit should be a tiny, tiny little sticker with a barcode on it. Grab a flashlight and your best bifocals and read it off. Mind the B's and D's. Case is important, so make sure you get it right.

3. On top of the drives, inside the Xserve, you should also find another copy of the tiny little sticker with the serial number on it.

4. If you don't get any love from either of those, look inside the hardware on the logic board itself. If any service has been done on the system, it should have another little replacement sticker on the board with the new serial number.

5. If you shoot blanks on all of those, you're probably going to have to boot the thing and use ioreg to find out what it thinks the serial is. So attach a firewire drive of your choice, or monitor and keyboard. Boot it up and get a terminal.

ioreg -l | grep SerialNumber | head -n 1 | awk '{ print $4 }'

Should parse it out nice and neat for you. If it's taken you this much to get the serial, etch it into the side of the case, or use a big black sharpie and scrawl it on the wall.

But what if the @#$%@! password doesn't work?

There's still a few hurdles that you may have yet to cross. Server Assistant does all of it's communication with the server over ssh. So you need to make sure that an ssh connection will go through. If you've got conflicting ssh keys or other "issues" with ssh, you'll have to clear them up before Server Assistant is happy.

Finally, you figure out it's already being #$$@% configured!

If you have a hiccup, or something goes wrong while using Server Assistant, you'll probably have trouble getting back into the server with Server Assistant. The reason is that the server thinks it's already in the middle of a configuration session and won't let you in.

This is easy enough to take care of, ssh into the server and go to /System/Library/ServerSetup. If you do an ls -al on the directory you should find a .RemoteSetupInProcess file. There's nothing in it, it's just used as a flag file to let the system know that someone else already started the configuration process. Remove this file, and then give Server Assistant another go and you should be good.