headless server upgrade

[embee]

There seems to be a dearth of information online about this, so I could think of no beter place than here to pose my question. It’s somewhat timely since Tiger is still relatively new. Here it is:

How do you perform a 10.x -> 10.(x+1) upgrade on a headless OS X Server?

I have set up a few headless servers with the lovely sa_srchr command from a remote Mac, but how does one upgrade that headless Panther server to Tiger without connecting a display? Is there a set of options for the /usr/sbin/installer command that will perform an upgrade instead of a new install?

Thanks in advance. Maybe this could be the topic of a future afp548 article…

[embee]

Thanks for the quick response. I knew this was the right place to pose this question.

I should have given a bit more detail in my question. I certainly have no problem with being onsite, I am just a bit reluctant to physically connect a display to a headless server if I don’t have to. Some of the servers that I manage don’t have video cards so I would have to power down, install one, [drag a display to the rack/server room or connect to a KVM], do the upgrade, then remove the card and display.

I would much prefer to just boot from the DVD, run the appropriate installer/upgrade command after finding the server with sa_srchr, and reboot. This seems like what you are suggesting in step 2 of your response, but my I was hoping to get feedback from someone who has tried this successfully. Will the command listed in your [excellent] headless server install how-to article work for an upgrade as well?

/usr/sbin/installer –verboseR –lang English –pkg \
/Volumes/”Mac OS X Server Install Disc 1″/system/installation/packages/osinstall.mpkg –target “/volumes/volumename

I didn’t think of your last suggestion, that would probably work, but it seems a bit more complicated than neccessary. Although with the complication comes an additional working backup…

I need to get some time at work to experiment. Thanks again for the quick response.

[embee]

Awesome. Thanks for the help, MT. I’ll give it a try.

[Anonymous]

This contains a link to the Apple forum where I posted my solution (and numerous hurdles!) but it also links to a guide on this site which really helped get the server installed and running my key services again nice and fast.

The main thing for me was somehow preserving my OD database (inc. passwords) when going from 10.3.9 to 10.4 I was able to clean install 10.4 in the end. The key was backing up the server system drive with NetRestore and having an iMacG5 to test things on. My Xserve is headless.

Here it is – http://discussions.info.apple.com/[email protected]@.68b7d429/0

[email protected]

Best of luck

[Author]

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