Lion Server - OpenDirectory migration woes

Hi,
We had a solid Snow Leopard Server but we needed to upgrade to Lion Server. We waited for 10.7.3 and went for it as per the Apple upgrade guide. O....M....G. What a mess.
OpenDirectory was trashed and pretty much discarded by Lion and any attempt to restore from a backup taken before the upgrade failed miserably. Tech support from Apple was woefully inadequate. The priceless "Yes, we have had a few reports of that problem" didn't fix the fault and neither did the "It will be easier for you to restore from a time machine backup but that doesn't back everything up". So that was a waste of an hour.
Fortunately, we had a Snow Leopard Server running a replica of the directory and I promoted that to master which allowed users to log in. I've also imported the users into Lion's directory but that only seems to create a link to the OD master on the SLS server.
Has anyone else come across this problem and how did you get around it? Doing an archive of the SLS OD Master and then restoring that on the Lion OD Master doesn't seem to work at all.
Very reluctant to upgrade the SLS OD Master now following the pain that has ensued from the last upgrade.
Any input very much appreciated.
Thanks,
Stu

Solved my own question here.
THE only way around this was to Export users via WM from the SLS OD Master and then Import users via WM into the LS OD Master. This process lost all user passwords so all accounts needed a password adding through WM and then all users were forced to do a password reset through the Default Website "Change Password" link or by forcing them to change their password on next logon in WM.
All sorted here, though. Not ideal and a lot of pain for the user base but all working fine now.
Stu

Similar Messages

What to do when SLS - Lion Server Upgrade & Migration Fail

Hi everyone,
I've had a tough time over the past week trying to updating my SLS to LS. (It was a slow week at the office so despite the warnings in these discussions I wasn't disturbing anyone, so I thought I'd try...) Both an upgrade to the current running system and a clean install on a wipe of that hard drive stall at the "Configuring Services" "Upgrading services" screen of the set up process. The migration path eventually fails, and as far as I can tell, it seems that the upgrade path just stays there forever.
Don't worry - I'm doing this all on a Super Duper! clone of my primary drive, so I can go back to SLS whenever I need to.
BUT, I can tell that the server's status is at least partially okay, even in this stalled setup state - iChat seems to work on various clients, and I can use Server Admin to see stats and services, etc.
So despite the discomfort of a failed install, part of me feels like I'll be fine with the LS if I can just figure out how to move my old data into the right places for the new system to use it. But I can't find any guidance for that. I'm looking to migrate OD (seems to have migrated fine), iCal, iChat, Address Book, Wikis, Time Machine, and File Sharing (which should be trivial to set up, I reckon).
Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Thanks very much,
Willhaus

Okay, so I've had some marginal success.
After leaving the hung install for a ridiculous amount of time (24+ hours), I realized that I could click the help button, and from the help window click the "further info about Lion Server" link to launch Safari. That gave me access to Software Update from the Apple menu, which then let me install the latest Safari update which conveniently enough requires a restart.
After restart, the Server Migration Assistant kicked in again, but failed quickly in the upgrading services stage. Another restart, and the sever finally booted more or less normally.
The strange thing was that although chat services worked fine during the hung install, all OD-related services stopped working after restarting. Turns out there were no users or groups in OD. Importing them from an OD archive, though, restored them.
So now iChat works great (even the old chat longs migrated successfully), and AFP is properly sharing our volumes across our studio's network. So our server is limping along.
The other services we need that aren't up yet are Wiki and iCal. Some info about those:
Wiki: administrators can log in and see all wikis just fine. That's awesome because it means the data migrated successfully. Any non-admin users can log in, but are then get a wiki-styled page that says simply "No wikis found". It's as if they don't have permissions to see the wikis, even though in Server.app they belong to the groups that the wikis are associated with. I've tried removing and re-adding users to groups, but that doesn't seem to do it. Any ideas how to fix this?
Calendar: While I can't get this to work, it's not like it's completely lifeless. An account in a client Lion iCal configured with the proper Lion settings returns an error that reads:
"The Server is Busy or Unavailable.
"The server at myserver.com is currently unable to handle the connection for account “ Calendars” due to a temporary overloading or maintenance of the server. If this continues you should contact the server administrator.
"You may try to connect to the server again or take the account offline."
As a logged in administrator, in a wiki clicking on Calendar in the nab bar goes to the calendar style page with an unending dialogue box that reads "Getting events from server". And clicking on Calendar from Home page footer takes me to the URL https://myserver.com/webcal with an error that says:
"Service Temporarily Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.
Apache/2.2.20 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.20 OpenSSL/0.9.8r DAV/2 Server at myserver.com Port 443"
Again, at least I'm confident that the data migrated properly - I can find all the calendar data in it's proper new location - but either the service won't start or something's not configured correctly. I've tried chaining the hostname and restarting the service about a billion times. I've got no idea what to try next. Any ideas?
Thank you so much,
Willhaus

Os x 10.7 lion server - opendirectory RealName attribute

creating users in opendirectory via commandline. those users' real names do not show up properly in Server.app or WorgroupManager.app - only the first component is displayed.
i have found that the RealName attribute is stored with a prepended LF character when the attribute is set via one of those gui apps, but stored without the LF character when set via commandline. this is the only difference i have been able to find. i have been unable to reproduce the prepended LF from the commandline. suggestions?
and yes, commandline usage is required in my case. firing up the gui and setting each user's RealName attribute is an extra step that should not be necessary.

just reposted to the lion server forum; couldn't figure out how to move this one.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/17359701#17359701

Where's the Mountain Lion Server Documentation?

Been waiting all day for Mountain Lion Server Documentation the be posted to no avail. What gives? Especially need the Mountain Lion Server Upgrading & Migrating manual. I help run a small educational cmoputer center in Santa Cruz CA and we need to transition from 10.5 Leopard Server on an old G5 Power Mac to 10.8 Mountain Lion Server on a new 2012 Mac mini as soon as it goes on sale. We particularly need the Workgroup Manager migration app documentation ASAP. Can any Apple employees explain why the Mountain Lion server documentation is not posted even though you can download the Mountain Lion Server since this morning?

Good Luck in Migrating from 10.5 Server to 10.8 Server... There's soo many changes.. Each time I've upgraded since 10.2.X server, I've always had to manual migrate things. Forget the automated upgraded process since it always hangs for me.
As for 10.6.8 Server, Apple changed the imap/pop server software from cyrus to dovecot. There's a script if I recall somewhere in 10.6.8 Server convert the imap mail of all the users. However before you run that script I recommend that you rebuild the imap structure in cyrus before you do...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3120
as for mirgrating OD user.... archive the users...
and import it...

Migrate 10.4.11 Server to Lion Server

Hi,
We have an older G5 sever running 10.4.11. It was setup quite a while ago, and I don't do IT consistently, so it might take a while to 'refresh' the mind on what was initially done when it was first setup.
But we just purchased a new Mac Mini server running 10.7.x. I found a PDF about Upgrading & Migrating to 10.7 and it specifically states 'The upgrade or migration to Lion Server from a v10.5 PowerPC is not supported.'
So I'm just wondering if anyone could give any advice or tips on how to get the new server setup to match our existing server with the least amount of setup time involved (we're pretty busy at the moment). I guess eyeballing it by looking at each side-by-side would be a worst-case scenario, but I can't imagine that would go all too smoothly.
Our usage was pretty limited, so I'm hoping this will ease the process. Here's the things I can think of off the top of my head that we will need to setup the same as current:
- User accounts, passwords, groups, permissions (we have less than 10 users).
- Firewall setup (we've made a lot of tweaks over the years to get everything to work with our network/router).
- VPN
- Share Points (we currently have an internal RAID 1 file-serving drive that will be migrating to an external Thunderbolt RAID 5 array. We just want to make sure all Share Points, ACLs & permissions don't get messed up in the transfer).
Thanks for any help!

To the extent that you have old PowerPC software that requires Rosetta, Rosetta is no longer included with Lion. The reason these applications do not work in Lion Server is that they were written for the older PowerPC CPU that all Macs used up to 2006 (in your case the G5). When Apple made its transition to the Intel CPU, they licensed software that they included in all versions of OS X (from Tiger to Leopard and optionally, Snow Leopard) called Rosetta.
Rosetta miraculously allows PowerPC applications to work on the Intel processor transparently; you do not know it is even present.
The problem is that after 6 years of the transition, Apple's license to use the underlying software expired for OS X Lion and all version thereafter (and it is doubtful that the current owner of the software, IBM, would relicense it, even if Apple were inclined to do so).
So for those of use that need to run Lion, I have offered the option to install Snow Leopard (with Rosetta) into Parallels 7:
[click on images to enlarge]
Full Snow Leopard installation instructions into Parallels 7 are here:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1365439

Simple guide to Migrate SL Server Wiki 10.6.8 to Lion Server 10.7.2

These instructions assumes that you already have the Wiki server functional on the new OSX Lion Server 10.7.2 and that you are logged in as a system administrator.
On the SL Server, browse to \Library\Collaboration and right click on the Collaboration folder and click "Get Info"
Scroll all the way to the bottom and expand "Sharing & Permissions"
If the Lock icon shows to be locked, click it and enter an Administrators password associated with the user account you are logged in under. Make sure the permissions for "Everyone" are set to "Read & Write". Then click on the small Gear icon below that and select "Apply to Enclosed Items". It will ask you if you are sure, tell it yes.
Now copy the Collaborations folder to the new Lion Server. Create the following directory to save the files too. \myoldwiki It will probably ask you to authenticate making a new folder at the root of the drive. So if prompted, tell it to allow and enter your administrator password is prompted. So now you have \myoldwiki\collaboration at the root of your new lion server.
Open Safari and browse to http://localhost on your Lion Server to verify that your existing server is working. If you get the "Welcome to OS X Lion Server" page with several icons for My page, Updates, Wikis, People, & Podcasts then your server is working. If not, see "Setting up OS X Lion Wiki Server". (An article that has not yet been written-Soon to follow)
If you click on Wikis, and if this is a fresh install, you will not see any wiki pages listed. On the top right of the web page, click on the + sign to create a new wiki. You can name it Test Wiki like I did and then create the page. Once created, go to it to make sure that its there.
Once your new Wiki server is confirmed to be functional, open terminal and enter the following command:
sudo wikiadmin migrate -r /myoldwiki/collaboration
Then press Enter/Return. Enter your users password if prompted. (Remember, passwords do not use echo in terminal so you will not see your password as you type it. Press Enter/Return again and you should see something similar to the following:
2011-12-18 10:50:18.315 wikiadmin[5033:307] Updating schema...
2011-12-18 10:50:18.324 wikiadmin[5033:307] Schema updates completed.
2011-12-18 10:50:18.326 wikiadmin[5033:307] Migrating...
2011-12-18 10:50:18.899 wikiadmin[5033:307] Migrating known users
2011-12-18 10:50:18.921 wikiadmin[5033:307] Generating placeholders for all known pages and wikis
2011-12-18 10:50:29.054 wikiadmin[5033:307] Found 7 pages belonging to 6 wikis and 2 users.
2011-12-18 10:50:29.057 wikiadmin[5033:307] Migrating project '(Wiki Page 1 Title Here)' (1 of 6)
2011-12-18 10:50:39.137 wikiadmin[5033:307] Migrating project '(Wiki Page 2 Title Here) ' (2 of 6)
2011-12-18 10:50:49.282 wikiadmin[5033:307] Migrating project '(Wiki Page 3 Title Here) ' (3 of 6)
2011-12-18 10:50:59.350 wikiadmin[5033:307] Migrating project '(Wiki Page 4 Title Here) ' (4 of 6)
2011-12-18 10:51:09.475 wikiadmin[5033:307] Migrating project '(Wiki Page 5 Title Here) ' (5 of 6)
2011-12-18 10:51:19.635 wikiadmin[5033:307] Migrating project '(Wiki Page 6 Title Here) ' (6 of 6)
2011-12-18 10:51:29.666 wikiadmin[5033:307] Re-scanning 0 pages for pasted image/attachment URLs
2011-12-18 10:51:29.669 wikiadmin[5033:307] Copying content to real tables...
2011-12-18 10:51:29.942 wikiadmin[5033:307] Destroying migration entity and scratch tables...
2011-12-18 10:51:30.295 wikiadmin[5033:307] Done
2011-12-18 10:51:30.304 wikiadmin[5033:307] Importing user preferences
2011-12-18 10:51:40.311 wikiadmin[5033:307] Rebuilding search index...
2011-12-18 10:51:50.724 wikiadmin[5033:307] Done
2011-12-18 10:51:50.726 wikiadmin[5033:307] Migration complete
Depending on the size of your wiki on SL Server, and depending on how many pages and attachments you have installed on it, this process could take anywhere from several seconds to several minutes. Also your entry may vary from mine above depending on how many pages you have as well. I currently only have 6 pages as you can see. Overall, the end result is what you want to see: "Migration complete". This is a very good sign.
If you get a lot of errors like i did my first time trying to do this, I found that i forgot to turn on and verify that my new Lion Server web server and wiki page were fully functional prior to starting the migration. So if you get several errors that look similar to this.......
2011-12-18 01:23:52.160 wikiadmin[2930:307] *** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'PGCConnectionError', reason: 'could not connect to server: No such file or directory
          Is the server running locally and accepting
          connections on Unix domain socket "/var/pgsql_socket/.s.PGSQL.5432"?
*** First throw call stack:
          0   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff915d6286 __exceptionPreprocess + 198
          1   libobjc.A.dylib                     0x00007fff958d9d5e objc_exception_throw + 43
          2   PostgreSQLClient                    0x0000000110038349 -[PGCConnection init] + 0
          3   PostgreSQLClient                    0x0000000110038425 -[PGCConnection initWithInfo:] + 157
          4   PostgreSQLClient                    0x0000000110037f8a +[PGCConnection connectWithInfo:] + 47
          5   wikiadmin                           0x000000010ff0db1e wikiadmin + 31518
          6   wikiadmin                           0x000000010ff2248f wikiadmin + 115855
          7   wikiadmin                           0x000000010ff0824c wikiadmin + 8780
          8   wikiadmin                           0x000000010ff07ba4 wikiadmin + 7076
You need to check your web server and wiki settings again.
Once everything is complete, you will need to go into your Server app on Lion Server and turn off the web server and also the wiki server. After about a minute or so, restart the web server then the wiki server and give it about 30 seconds or so to completely come back online. Now browse to http://localhost on the Lion Server and you should once again see the "Welcome to OS X Lion Server" page. Click on wikis and you should see the list of wikis you imported as well as the test wiki you created earlier. This will confirm that the files have been truly copied to the proper location for wikis on the new Lion Server.
At this point, your old wiki pages are ready to be used on your new OS X Lion Server.
There is a drawback with this process. Since you are moving ONLY the wiki database over to the new machine, all of the original users and groups is not transferred. As you can see i have 6 wikis and 2 users. This process doe not import the users and their configurations over to the new server. That process is completed by "Exporting" the "Server Admin Settings" & "Service Settings" from the SL Server "Server Admin" and importing them in the reversed fashion on the new Lion Server using Server Admin on the new server. This, however, is for another tutorial yet to be written. Mostly because i have yet to do it.
Good Luck.....
Isaac-in-Texas
NOTE: If you find an error in this posting, keep in mind we are all human and all make mistakes. Shoot me an email and i'll see if i can get it corrected.
Proud Owner of.....
2011 MabBook Pro * 2.3Ghz i7 * 16GB 1333 Ram * 750GB HDD Internal
2008 iMac 21.5" * 3.06Ghz Core 2 Duo * 16GB 1067 Ram * 1TB HDD Internal * Mercury Elite Pro 5TB RAID 5 External
iPhone 4 32GB
iPhone 4 8GB (Wife)
iPhone 3G 16GB (Spare)
iPad 32GB 1st Gen
iPod Touch 2nd Gen (My Son)
Apple TV 2nd Gen
Airport Extreme
I'm sure i'm missing something.....

Hi.
Purchase Mac OS X Lion v10.7 (or OS X Lion Server) at the App Store.
Make sure your Mac meets Lion's requirements before purchasing.
Mac computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, or Xeon processor
2GB of memory
OSX v10.6.6 or later (V10.6.8 recommended)
7GB of available spare
From here > Apple - OS X Lion - Technical specifications
A must read before upgrading to Lion > Lion upgrade questions: Apple Support Communities
You can access the App Store from your Apple menu, your Dock, or your Applications folder.

Complications migrating from Snow Leopard Server to Mountain Lion Server.

I'm migrating from Snow Leopard Server to Mountain Lion Server. The article "OS X Server: Upgrade and migration" (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5381) says
"Make sure that any DNS or DHCP servers on which your server depends remain running during the upgrade"
This advice is reinforced by the details of the article "OS X Server: Steps to take before upgrading or migrating the Open Directory database" (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5300).
As the server I'm migrating from provides these services it will need to be running during the migration process. This would seem to limit my options to doing the migration from a Time Machine backup (or, making a seperate clone of the server's drive and connecting it externally to the new box)
My main concern is the seemingly inevitable clash that is going to occur on the network as the new server takes on the roles of the old one - while it is still running.
What are my options here ?
This is my second attempt as on my first try I did the migration from the TM backup with the network down - and none of my local network users or their home directories were migrated, although the settings for the mount points were, but there were no actual directories where they pointed to!
Clear directions on how to procede would be VERY MUCH appreciated
Thank you.

Moving from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion means first installing the client (non-Server) version of Mountain Lion and then install Server.app this means that for at least part of the process you will not be running DNS, DHCP or Open Directory.
If you are going to end up using the same DNS name and IP address after the change then an approach you could follow would be as follows.
Destroy any Open Directory replicas
Archive your Open Directory Master (to make a backup)
Note down your DNS records in case they get messed up
Export via Workgroup Manager your users, and groups (you might not need this but better safe than sorry), make sure you do not include the diradmin account
Keep a full back of the server (you should always have backups)
Note down your DHCP server settings in case they get messed up
Note down any other service settings
Install Mountain Lion
Install Server.app
Install Workgroup Manager (extra free download)
Run Server.app
Make sure settings for services are as much as possible the same as before
If your lucky that may be all you need to do, otherwise...
Restore Open Directory archive, if your lucky that will be all you need to do, otherwise...
Make new Open Directory Master
Run Workgroup Manager
Import users and groups you previously exported
You will then have to set passwords for each user as these are not preserved via Workgroup Manager export
When I did this, I was also being forced to change all my IP addresses so I had no choice but to use Workgroup Manager to export and import accounts.

Users report no email messages after migration from Lion Server to a clean Mavericks Server with Migration Assistant

We have a Mac Mini server running Lion Server.
We bought a new Mac Mini server and installed OS X Mavericks and the Server app onto it.
We then ran Migration Asssitance on the Mavericks machine and migrated from the Lion server in target disk mode.
The migration seemed to run OK and all the user accounts seem to be working, however users are reporting that there are no email messages in their mailboxes.
Confirmed this behaviour by adding their accounts to mail (via IMAP) on a separate laptop.
Did we miss something? Is there an extra step to move the email service data?
Any insights would be grately appreciated.
Many thanks, Tom.

Hey tomgallagher!
You can use this article to help you troubleshoot the functionality of these Mail accounts if they are not functioning properly:
OS X Mail: Troubleshooting sending and receiving email messages
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts3276
If your saved emails did not come across properly in the Migration, you can always export the mail from the old computer and import it into the new computer manually:
Lion Mail: Export mailboxes
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH4811
Thanks for coming to the Apple Support Communities!
Regards,
Braden

Lion server migration from 10.6 wiki dead, mail dead, ical dead

i have a mac mini w leopard server- everything worked perfect
i upgrade and migrated to lion server
nothing working, wiki, mail, or icalendar
any ideas-
other than going back to restore of timemachine of leopard server
thanx
CT

One thing that jumps out from your brief description of the problem is a bug in the persent iteration of Lion Server that occurs when the "Dedicate system resources to server services" box is checked (or, honestly, when it's unchecked too -- read on). This is located within Server.app. in the left pane, select your machine under the hardware section. The second tab, settings, contains this option. I'd try either ticking or unticking the box and then restarting and then trying to start those services again. Though the bug was initially reported as related to this similar problem (the one you describe) occurring when this box is checked, I've found that toggling between on to off, or off to on (depending on the current state) and then restarting, seems to help get things going again. Sometimes this has to be done twice. As well, until Apple issues a fix for these Server.app related problems, it's best, once you get your server configured, to keep from opening Server.app when possible. Just opening it seems to cause problems. One example of this is checking the mail quota box and entering a value. It seems to stick fine, but when Server.app is opened again, the box is unchecked once again. This one happens every time.

Migrate from Tiger (10.4) server to Lion server

I have a Tiger (10.4) server that I would like to retire and upgrade to a Lion server. Does anyone know of any documentation on how I can migrate user data and mail to the new Lion server?

bnowotny wrote:
I have a Tiger (10.4) server that I would like to retire and upgrade to a Lion server. Does anyone know of any documentation on how I can migrate user data and mail to the new Lion server?
Apple's official documentation is available here http://www.apple.com/macosx/server/resources/documentation.html the first choice is specifically about migrating.
You might also find this article useful, see http://www.macresearch.org/tutorial-backup-your-open-directory-server-using-laun chd and also my previous post on a similar topic which you can read here https://discussions.apple.com/message/16430995#16430995

Migrating wiki from Leopard Server (10.5) to Lion Server

Is there any way to migrate Wiki Server data from Leopard Server (i.e. 10.5 not 10.6) to Lion Server without upgrading to Snow Leopard first. I'm happy to set up everything else afresh but I've migrated wiki data before and it was a nightmare.
The situation we'll soon be in is needing to migrate wiki data on a PowerPC mac running Leopard Server to a new Power Mac pre-installed with Lion Server.

From: http://images.apple.com/macosx/server/docs/Upgrading_and_Migrating_v10.7.pdf
Need to set up Lion Server first, then:
Copy the wiki data located in /Library/Collaboration/ by default or in the location specified in Server Admin on the v10.5.8 or later server to a local volume Lion Server can access.
Use the following steps to manually migrate your Mac OS X v10.5.8 or later server’s Wiki data to Lion Server.
If you are migrating a v10.5.8 wiki server’s data, make sure Lion Server is bound to the same Open Directory master as the v10.5.8 server, so the ACLs for wikis can convert. If not, wikis are only readable or writeable by admins, and ACLs must be reset.
To migrate wiki data:
1 Start Wiki service in the Server app.
2 Enter the following command.
sudo wikiadmin migrate -r /path/to/collaboration/folder

Password problem after migrating to Mountain Lion Server

Hello everyone,
Yesterday, I migrated our Lion Server to Mountain Lion Server. Everything seemed to work fine. Except since this morning, none of the network user cannot connect to their calendar, reminders, and wiki. They can connect to their account and to their mails. The following line appears multiple times in ApplePasswordServer.Error.log:
Aug 16 2012 16:52:50 700250us client response doesn't match what we generated
It seems that only web services are concerned (vpn, mobile accounts, and mails are working). My initial guess is that the hash computed on the basis of the user password is not computed on the same way on the client machine (which is running Mountain Lion by the way) and on the server. On the other hand, this would be very surprising, since all this stuff is based on standards and unlikely to have changed since Lion.
I tried to create a new "Test" user. Even this new user, created after the migration, cannot connect to its calendar, etc. I also tried to reset my user password using the Server App. It makes no difference, the same lines appear in the logs.
Is anyone experiencing a similar problem ? Does anyone have a clue of what to try next ?
Thanks a lot !

I found out the following:
After looking at the contents of the password server database using the slot numbers of several user accounts, it seems that all users where WEBDAV-DIGEST authentication is failing, have two entries for the digest method "*cmusaslsecretDIGEST". This is obviously wrong. All users who can authenticate successfully have only one such entry.
Deleting and recreating the user account has no effect. In fact, updating the password server with a new entry may actually trigger this error. It could be that all users where this is failing have changed their passwords after the server was updated to Mountain Lion.
It would be interesting to know if you also see duplicate entries for "*cmusaslsecretDIGEST" in the database. You can display a password server record via the user account's slot number (in your example, the 0xd6ace...) using the command
sudo mkpassdb -dump <slot-number>
At the end of the record dump, you should see 10 digest entries with their method identifiers.

What is the migration path to Lion Server from Mac Mini Snow Leopard Server

I've currently got a mac mini server happily serving wikis/blogs... what is the update path to Lion Server?

excellent resource! thanks!
my mac mini server got stuck after lion install but before running server set up...
I had to reset the PRAM (http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379) before I could get control of the server back.

Many Lion Server Problems

I think I have run into most of the Lion Server issues mentioned so far and perhaps a few self inflicted new ones.
1) Upgrade from Snow Leopard worked except the migration failed. Naturally I did not have a backup of the server configuration.
2) Manual configuration has many problems related to the machine name. I was using a linux box for DNS and a private LAN DNS name space. My router is configured to forward many services to my OSX Server box. Somehow I could not configure Lion Mail to operate. The machine name, Internet name, local internet name, etc. are very confusing and different things happen depending upon using Server or Server Admin. In Snow Leopard I could use a command line utility to set the return mail address to my MX record but under Lion I had to eliminate the private LAN name space, configure Lion to be the DNS before I could get e-mail to operate correctly from both IMAP and WEB mail.
3) Once you attempt to use Open Directory the only way to correct a failed configuration is to re-install from scratch.
4) If LDAP and the Password process fail to launch then they ping on/off every 10 seconds forever. Only a re-install from scratch is the fix. When this happens it appears that the permissions on the boot drive are hopelessly broken. I do not mess with the permissions but now I am pondering a nightly permissions repair script.
5) Using self signed certificates seems to cause many problems. If I use them for the mail server everything is OK. If I use them for Open Directory I cannot seem to get the other systems to connect.
6) Under Snow Leopard I could see all users and their pictures on the remote Mac's. I can't find this on Lion.
7) Open Directory quit after a week of operation requiring a clean install from my backup. I turned off Reserve Server Resources. I hope this helps.
8) Timeouts on Lion seem to be infinite. Once one application falls into a timeout you eventually must power cycle the whole machine.
9) The first time a user users mail I have to force kill it and restart before it performs the initial configuration. This has happened 3 times so far.
10) Manually editing user permissions from Finder within the Admin account (i.e. correcting my old user directories to match my new user ID's) is an exercise in futility. Using the command line seems to be the only reliable way.
11) I still cannot get profiles to work but I am afraid to try because the server seems to fragile.
12) Carbon Copy Cloner is a required tool with Lion. As soon as you have something working, make a fresh backup so you do not have to redownload everything. I now make a nightly backup of the boot drive with CCC and cron.
13) Some settings only take affect on a reboot, when you are making/testing changes this causes an interesting phase delay between making a change and observing an effect.
My system is a Mac Mini with 8GB and 24TB of RAID storage on Firewire.
It hosts home directories, e-mail, wiki's, etc for my wife & kids. All data is on the Mini so the other macs at home are bare except for OS and Apps.
This upgrade has caused more trouble than all other system upgrades I have ever done. It is making me think seriously about making another stab at LDAP/OD on Linux for my home server.

You might want to take a look at the much more functional AirPort Utility 5.6 for Mac OS X Lion on a "test" Mac to see if that works better for you. Oddly, 5.6 was released on the same day as AirPort Utility 6.0.
You can keep both 5.6 and 6.0 on a Mac (You cannot delete 6.0).

What I wish I'd Known Before My Lion Server Install

The truth is that I am on my FIFTH Lion Server install on the same box this week. While I was working on #4, I went ahead and submitted a ticket with Apple and arranged a timeslot for this morning to work with them to help me past my struggles with Lion Server. This post is the result of that experience. Big props to Apple support techs Chuck and Don - you know who you are!
What I Wish I'd Known Before My Lion Server Install
1. Do NOT migrate user accounts, apps, and files, until AFTER you have the Server set up and working correctly.
- This one tip, which is brilliantly simple, would have saved me four very long days of head bashing.
2. Server Admin Tools are mandatory.
- The first time around I used the Server App to configure the system (after an upgrade install, and subsequently after a clean install + migration).
- Server Admin allows you to set up the foundation of your server - which it NEEDS!
- DNS - configure a local, pseudo domain for your server if you're doing this at home. Something like "mynet.private" - if you don't, your SSL certificates can get all jacked up, your clients will not trust your certs. This breaks a lot of stuff.
3. Do NOT accept the mDNS .local domain suffix for your Server
- At each step, if something auto-fills your server name as name.local reject it, and use the fully qualified domain name that you set up above (server.mynet.private).
- If you do not do this, anything that requires certificates could/will have big problems.
4. Enable services one at a time. Reboot after EACH major phase past the core Lion install.
- Base install ... Server install. REBOOT
- DNS configuration. REBOOT
- validate your host name - I needed to force a 'changeip' command because there was a problem with the HOSTNAME retaining the mdns .local domain name.
- OD Master config. REBOOT
- Set up Podcast Producer (which will also setup your Xgrid). REBOOT
5. Take images of your hard drive as you go.
- Once I got the core server installed, the basic services above, I rebooted and held the option key, then restarted on the Recovery HD image.
- Use Disk Utility to take a snapshot image of your hard disk so you can get back to this wonderful place of everything working! It's cheap insurance, and adds a bit of extra time, but is well worth it. If you leave the default settings alone (the 'compressed' one in particular) it will use as little space as possible. My server at this stage of configuration created a 4GB disk image.
6. Use the Migration Assistant After the above
- Now you can migrate your apps
- Migrate your users
- etc.
If you use the Migration option while you're installing the server, or if you upgrade on top of your Snow Leopard (or whatever), I can almost guarantee you that you are in for a world of hurt.
I struggled through all kinds of issues with files having embedded information, scattered throughout all the various subsystems, that gummed up my installation and would case all manner of the flakey Lion Server behavior that you read about ("Error Reading Configuration").
If you want to use Podcast Producer, or any of the Profile Manager features, the above methodology was the only way that I could get them to work. Often times I'd have everything working, then reboot and it would break. After I did the above, the system is as solid as a rock.
Today, I love Lion Server. Yesterday I was cursing it.
Best of luck!!

There are 2 distinct apps in Lion Server.... Podcast (in Server app) and Podcast Producer (Server admin which is deemed legacy from SNS). Podcast uses Podcast Publisher instead of Podcast Capture to produce, edit and submit to Podcast app. Podcast doesn't requre Xgrid where PCP did. The two don't mix.
It's as clear as mud in all the documentation about this.
We're finding that Podcast Publisher has much more flexibility that Podcast Capture (edit, episodes & more), can use existing workflow from PCP, doesn't require xgrid, and podcasts can easily be managed by non-IT people via the Podcast wiki as opposed to the CLI pcast commands to edit & modify PCP feeds.
Hope this helps.

Lion Server - OpenDirectory migration woes

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