Migration failed, how to restore OpenDirectory from TimeMachine backup?

[rcfa]

I migrated a Mac OS X server 10.6.3 installation that used to be running on a VMWare Fusion virtualized machine to a new computer. After the installation, I used the transfer settings from another computer or TimeMachine backup to set up the new machine, or so I thought.
The setup process was busy for a long time (slogin was possible after a while, so I could monitor what was going on from the command line). In the middle of, or shortly after migrating the IMAP database and a few GB worth of mail, the migration failed, and the installer requested me to reboot. The system booted up normally, except that OpenDirectory information was not present. So while the mail database is there, there are no mail users, and no network user accounts present.

I see that in the root of each TimeMachine backup there is a hidden folder named .ServerBackups which contains the configuration of the various services.

[b]what script does TimeMachine use to use the contents of these folders to reconfigure a machine, when a machine is restored entirely from backup?[/b] I basically need to know this script, and hopefully I can use that to restore the missing pieces in this puzzle, like my OpenDirectory and Mail configuration…

It’s also pretty bad that Apple’s migration just dies. This is a server that was fully functional before the migration, so the data should be backed up properly by TimeMachine (unless there’s a bug there) and thus should not crash the installer attempting to restore that data.

This is fairly urgent, since due to a variety of complications this has been taking longer than it should have, and I’m likely starting to permanently bounce mail soon, if I can’t get this fixed 🙄

Alternatively, are there scrips or procedures by means of which I can use the data on these TimeMachine backups to get things going again?

[rcfa]

I made some progress in this matter. Open Directory I could restore, because as it turns out, the disk image in the .ServerBackup folder subfolder for Open Directory is the same structure as the disk images created when one backs up Open Directory from within Server Admin. So I could extract that and use Server Admin to restore it.

There is however still some other screwy business going on. e.g. trying to do a repair permissions with Disk Utility gives me an error message that “Error: no installer packages can be found for this disk” even though they are clearly there in /var/db/receipts

Also, I still have no clue on how to restore the rest of the stuff that’s in that .ServerBackup folder (except for some of the subfolders which I guess can just be mv-ed into place.

I wish there were some documentation on these issues, particularly given how obviously fragile the whole migration process is, and this is migrating within the SAME VERSION of the OS, i.e. from a 10.6.3 machine to another, fresh 10.6.3 install…

[kimerajamm]

thank all 😀 😀 😀 😀

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