Netboot in Server Admin is broken

I keep having to completely restart my 2 Tiger Servers because something is wrong with the NetBoot plugin in Server Admin. After a few days, it will become unresponsive, and the most I can do is start and stop the service via the command line - even just requesting fullstatus (in terminal) on the service comes back with failed plugin error.
Anyone else seen this? Any ideas?

One thing to look for is to make sure that the "Image Index" fields in all of your NBImageInfo.plist files are "integer" values, rather than "string" values. I've seen that cause problems before.

Similar Messages

Server admin tool's help file broken ?

Hi,
SL Server 10.6.4
I'm trying to open the help file of the server admin tool but it seems to be broken : 100% CPU, beachball. The same occurs with the file included in the standalone bundle (see http://support.apple.com/downloads/ServerAdmin_Tools_106) installed on a SL 10.6.4 client.
Anybody having the problem too ? Any idea ?
Thanks

Hi,
SL Server 10.6.4
I'm trying to open the help file of the server admin tool but it seems to be broken : 100% CPU, beachball. The same occurs with the file included in the standalone bundle (see http://support.apple.com/downloads/ServerAdmin_Tools_106) installed on a SL 10.6.4 client.
Anybody having the problem too ? Any idea ?
Thanks

NetBoot/NetInstall settings in Server Admin buggy as ****?

Hi,
I administer a Mac pool in College. We recently updated to all new iMacs (except for one, which still is a 2006 C2D iMac) and Leopard Server running on a PowerMac G4 (Dual 1GHz, 1.5 GB RAM).
Except for a few initial quirks with Directory Services, Leopard Server runs fine and snappy on the G4 and seems highly reliable. But then again, there's this BIG problem with NetInstall.
We setup one of the new iMacs as the master computer with all the neccesary software installed, and then created a NetInstall image from it using System Image Utility. It took a while, but went fine.
We then placed the image in the proper directory (Library/NetBootSP0), and configrured and launched NFS and NetBoot services in Server Admin. It found the image and offered configuration for it. But somehow, the most essential settings are not saved, when clicking "Save" in server admin, no matter whether the service is still running or being stopped before settings are changed.
These settings are saved by Server Admin:
Default image
Enable this image
Diskless (while not being available)
Architecture (Universal, Intel or PPC)
Protocol (NFS or HTTP)
While these settings *are not* saved by Server Admin whatsoever:
Model property filtering ("Allow any Apple Computer" vs. "Allow only specified models")
MAC Address filtering ("Allow only listed clients and deny others" vs. "Deny listed clients and allow all others")
(These settings appear when selecting an image from the list an clicking on the Edit-button (with a pen on it))
Whenever I make a change to this and click "Save", Server Admin simply ignores this and reverts it to the default settings, which are "Allow any Apple Computer" an "Allow only listed clients and deny others" with no clients listed.
When I leave the setting on "allow listed and deny others" (Whitelist), an add a clients MAC Address and save, this is ignored by Server Admin.
When I change the setting to "deny listed and allow others" (Blacklist), and save, this is ignored by Server Admin too. No matter whether I add MAC Addresses to the blacklist or not.
That way, the NetBoot service will *not send my NetInstall Image to any client*, because it thinks it has a whitelist configured, that is permanently empty. Clients not added to the whitelist are denied, which is good, but it is not possible at all, to even add a client to that whitelist. Blacklisting some machine and allowing all others doesn't work either.
Editing the approproate NBImageInfo.plist manually showed me, that Server Admin is able to:
read settings for specified types of models properly, but unable to change this setting
and *unable to even read settings about whitelisted or blacklisted MAC addresses* from the plist (keys "EnabledMACAddresses" or "DisabledMACAddresses") properly.
And so, it also cannot write these settings into the plist, it seems.
I have to NetInstall the classroom until thursady, and because of this bug, I cannot get it to work as it should, since all my cients are denied the image. This is very frustrating.
What can I do?
Message was edited by: jamespsullivan

MAC address filtering at the server level works, just not filtering at the image level. Depending on exactly what you are trying to achieve, this might help. But, I'm not clear on exactly what you are trying to achieve with the filtering.
The 1,0 syntax is mostly irrelevant. It is simply a reference to the NIC on the connecting system. If you have a machine with multiple NIC's (such as a Mac Pro) you might see something like 2,0:xx... instead. Regarding the rest of it, I believe the Server admin will accept accept any MAC address in the format of xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx with or without leading 0's (i.e. 00:0a:1b vs. 0:a:1b).
Model filtering information is stored in the NBImageInfo.plist, and can be manually tweaked with an appropriate application of force. You can manually move system types that you want enabled into the EnabledSystemIdentifiers list (and, of course, remove them from the DisabledSystemIdentifiers list).

Netboot/Server Admin problems

Hi,
I'm using 10.6.8 server and for a while now server admin has disallowed any user to log in to manage the server. I now want to deploy an old 10.6 image and need to re-enable netboot, does anyone have the terminal command as i have forgotten it and cant remember it at all
Regards.
Jim.

sudo serveradmin start netboot

Server Admin Crashes: Thread 6 NetBoot

Every time I start my Server Admin Program it crashes and cannot update the services and cannot load some of them. When I click on DHCP I know it is running but it will show no connected clients. Netboot Will Not Even Populate.
I get several errors:
My Server:
OS X Server 10.5.8
Server Admin Tools: 10.5.3 (even though I used the 10.5.7 install package.)
The Service has encountered an error (kNetworkError)
DHCP:
missing '}' at line 34444
when I run a status update
NETBOOT:
From system log:
com.apple.servermgrd: Exited Abnormally: Bus Error
NETBOOT: (continued)
Problem From Log:
Process:
servermgrd [22059]
Path:
/usr/sbin/servermgrd
Identifier:
servermgrd
Version:
Code Type:
X86 (Native)
Parent Process: launchd [1]
Date/Time:
2013-02-17 11:14:03.979 -0500
OS Version:
Mac OS X Server 10.5.8 (9L34)
Report Version: 6
Anonymous UUID: 5BD50A1F-4C6D-4787-8490-FCBA1C6993F9
Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGBUS)
Exception Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE at 0x0000000000000000
Crashed Thread: 6
Thread 6 Crashed:
0   com.apple.CoreFoundation          0x9761672b CFBooleanGetValue + 43
1   ...rverAdmin.servermgr_netboot    0x0043c273 my_xdrproc + 12873
2   ...rverAdmin.servermgr_netboot    0x00439915 my_xdrproc + 2283
3   libservermgrcommon.dylib          0x00077414 -[PluginRequestHandler doProcessInputWithRequest:context:lockFileFD:] + 315
4   libservermgrcommon.dylib          0x000791c0 -[BundleManager doCommand:withModule:forUser:] + 905
5   libservermgrcommon.dylib          0x00078ba7 -[BundleManager doOneBatchCommand:] + 448
6   com.apple.Foundation              0x93006dfd -[NSThread main] + 45
7   com.apple.Foundation              0x930069a4 __NSThread__main__ + 308
8   libSystem.B.dylib                 0x97fe0055 _pthread_start + 321
9   libSystem.B.dylib                 0x97fdff12 thread_start + 34

Your NFS mounts (and service) appear to be fine.
Looking at your screenshot, you have a much larger problem than NetBoot & DHCP. The whole servermanager daemon looks like it's failing to run.
You are probably going to have to get someone to diagnose it live, or take it to an Apple Store.

No Checkboxes Under Netboot (Server Admin)

After doing a server restore, the Netboot pane in Server Admin (on 10.5.8) no longer displays *any* checkboxes, either for ports, or for locations.
What config files can Imodify to repair this?
Some config file must be corrupt, and if I knew what to change, I could fix it, but I cannot find this problem elsewhere.
Ethernet is working everywhere else, so it isn't that.
My Other 10.5 server displays Eth0, Eth1, and FireWire.

That was one of the first things that I tried to do. I tried it again today, just to be certain, and all it did was entirely frag my network.
I have tried three different boot volumes, removed the PCI-X FC card (as apple sayd 'Do Not Use' for Intel XServes: I'm not sure why), tried installing Server Admin v10.5.7 (individual download), which only caused SA to crash constantly, re-applied the 10.5.8 v1.1 update, that seemingly fragged other prefs, and now am re-cloning the main boot volume from the backup I made prior to messing with it today, as I can now no longer even load localhost. :/
Thank goodness for routine system imaging.
**None of this did anything.**
My PPC G5 XServe Netboot works, but the Netboot optipons on the 2008 Intel are still MIA.
I also tried to rempte view the server via SA on the G5, and the ports aren't visible from there either.
I ran a drive with a much older backup, from when I am certain that NetBoot was working. I zapped the Pram six more times, and I'm at a loss here to explain the cause. I thought it could have been due to instal;ling the PCI-X FC card, but that doesn't seem to be true. For the record, I think that the FC card (PCI-X version) *was* working, although I can't prove that, and I don't know why Apple says not to use it on Intel models with a PCI-X slot.
No install that I have, current or backup, will shpw any ports or discs for Netboot, at all. My last resort wi;ll be to try a cleanm install on anopther volume, after I finish restoring this disc image, and see if that shpws the ports. If a clean install does not show ports for NB, than I am totally lost on what else I could do, as it will have to be some kind of bizarre HW problem.
I will have to verify if I have any FW devices plugged into the system. I believe I unplugged them, but I've done so much on this one problem that it's making my head spin.

Server Admin not responding

Hi
I recently had lightning strike which has caused some problems for me. I'm running Leopard Server 10.5.8 and all services seem to be working.
The lightning strike fried my ethernet port on my macmini (which runs the server). I bought a USB Ethernet port and it is up and running as primary interafce.
My DNS settings are correct, or at least sudo changeip -checkhostname reports that names match and that there is nothing to change. Loopback works as it should. I can ssh to my server.
What I can't do is use Server Admin, it doesnt work on the server regardless of me using localhost or server.local or 127.0.0.1 and it doesnt work if I try use Server Admin from another machine on the local network.
I changed my D-link to a Airport Express (lightning fried the D-link also).
As things stands I am unable to administer the server with Server Admin. I have tried deleting the com.apple.ServerAdmin.plist in ~/Library/Preferences/ which has made no difference.
Server Admin just displays nothing when I try to use it.
Sometimes when using Server Admin a box pops up that states that Server Admin wishes to use the keyring "PrivateEncryptedDatak" and asks for a password. To my knowledge I have never set a password for anything called "PrivateEncryptedDatak"
I have seen a few different posts about this issue and have tried suggested solutions but to no avail. Hence this thread, hoping that someone has a good suggestion.

Back once again. It's apparent that when trying to run serveradmin via command line ( for instance serveradmin status mail ) it returns no answer despite the fact that the mail services are upp and running. As far as I can tell serveradmin wants to use en0, however I have no en0 since that ethernet card is broken. I need to be able to tell serveradmin to use en2. I would really appreciate it if someone could possible lend me a hand on this topic.
Thanks

How long should it take a well-qualified server admin to migrate from Tiger to Lion...

How long should it take a well-qualified server admin to migrate from Tiger to Lion...
For a small company, if the Tiger server is running on a G4 Tower:
-Roughly 500GB in user files
-Data resides on old-school ATA drives
-OD Master - Kerberized
-AFP
-Mobile Homes
-DHCP
-DNS (for 2 domains)
-FTP
-iChat
-Mail (non SSL)
-NetBoot
-Print Server
-SWUPD
-VPN
-Hosting website using MySQL
-User & Computer Management
Considerations/Hurdles/Challenges:
-Tossing old G4 into garbage, upgrading Mini client to Snow Leopard, adding Lion iMac client to the LAN
-Fresh OS installs on the Mini and iMac
-Upgrading from CAT5 to CATE on the LAN (not it the walls - just loose cables)
-All new hardware must be sourced out (take some time to price compare)
-Must find a way to transfer data from ATA drives to SATA drives or Lion Server
-Company must not have any email downtime (MX Records to be modified on DNS Providers site)
-Servers hostname goes from "companyserver.company.com" to "server.company.com"
-ISP blocks some SMTP ports
-DNS Provider doesn't support TSL/SSL SMTP
-Implementing a switch into the network
-Implementing a new router (for firewall and NAT) from ISP
Upgrading to Lion Mini Server
-All the same services
-Using SSL
-Implementing Mobile Device Enrolment and Deployment
That should just about cover it. I'll add any other details/hurdles as they come to mind.
Can you guys give me your best guesstimate as to how many hours you think this job should take? I'd appreciate any feedback as to how long you guys think it'd take you to make this transition. I'm trying to plan, and we're going to be down-and-out, the boss NEEDS to know for how long.!
Thanks in advance guys!

It's about a gigabyte, so if you have a slow connection, it might take some time.
But - you shouldn't be getting the beach ball - that's a different thing.
Can you do open Activity Monitor, or is it stuck completely?

Server admin beachballing like crazy

I just installed a clean 10.5 Server onto a secondary drive in our 2x867ghz MDD. This server doesn't do much, mostly Software Updates and Netboot. I set up with an advanced config and got everything running. The problem this time around is that Server Admin takes two minutes of beachballing to get to a different config screen. If I want to check on Software Update Server, it takes two minutes. I can check around within the tabs just fine, but trying to check the log or switching to any service outside of it means another extended wait. The little gear wheel in the lower right spins around as well. I fail to see what I could have done to cause this. It was like this right out of the box, so to speak. There's plenty of free RAM, too, and all updates have been run. Checking the console shows A LOT of this:
2/5/08 8:27:42 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.dyld) Throttling respawn: Will start in 60 seconds
I recently ran this thing through a diagnostic wringer and didn't find any problems. Tiger Server has been running just fine. This is my second time trying to get Leopard Server to work, and it's going about as well as the first, just with different inexplicable bugs this time.
Oh, and SUS STILL doesn't give you any indication of it's download progress. It just sits there until it's finished. Thanks for that one, Apple. A progress bar of some kind would've taken minimal effort.

The solution for me was to fix the reverse DNS.
The server that provided the reverse DNS for the IP addresses for our server was down. This caused slow behavior with both Server Admin and Remote Access.
I'd call this an Apple bug. The applications should not stop simply because they can't do a reverse lookup.

Server Admin permissions

Hi, where do I change the permissions to allow certain users to edit server settings (e.g. NetBoot settings) in Server Admin?

A user needs to be in the Administrator group in order to run Server Admin and configure a server.
Note that this can have other consequences - since it makes the user an admin they can change any element of the server, not just the components exposed by Server Admin.

From one day do another server admin don't connect to the server

I have an Intel XServe with OSX Server 10.4.10.
From one day do another server admin don't connect to the server locally and remotely. The workgroup admin shows not the sharing button. The other services works correct. (FileService, NetBoot, ping etc ...). In the CrashReporter I've only find a crash from dashboardadvisoryd. I don't want restart the server.
I there an other solution?
Thanks Sven

I found the solution in a message three above:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1184552&tstart=0
With
sudo kill -HUP `ps aux|grep 'servermgrd'|grep -v 'grep'|awk '{print $2;}'`
from the terminal ... and after any minute's later the problem was solved
Sven

Server Admin user and group limit

Just noticed today with 10.6.7 that there is a limit of 100 users being displayed in Server Admin. I guess the sames goes for Groups as well.
As soon as i deleted some old accounts the users i had created recently appeared in Server Admin.
Is there a fix for this?
Thanks

As you mentioned, it is a display limit in WM, the accounts are still there. A quick workaround is to type part of the object name in the search box at the top of the list.
That 100 object display limit was probably the result of countless meetings between middle-managers. I'm guessing it went something like this:
"Why don't we just show them all?"
"Some deployments could have tens of thousands... that won't work... it'll take forever to load and even longer for somebody to skim through the list."
"Okay, how about we do 1000?"
"No, that won't work either. Still too many to skim through and, even worse, they'll spend years with 999 objects in there then add a few more and think it's broken..."
"Fine... then 100. Short enough to load reasonably quickly and long enough that the average person could eyeball it."
"But there will still be some admins who think it's broken and want to change it."
Steve Jobs walks in, "Give 'em a search box."
Middle-managers in unison, "Brilliant!"
Sorry. It's early, and I'm a bit punchy.

How to DHCP Server with NO ROUTER on Server Admin panel field?

Hi all!
I'm having a little problem.
I have two completely different networks, with different purposes, one is 10.0.10.X and the other is 192.168.10.X. My networks is like this:
Internet------Wifi Router (192.168.10.250) -----iMacs AirPoirt (192.168.10.X)
MacPro (10.0.10.100)-----iMacs Ethernet (10.0.10.X)
Great, is so simple. So I had a DHCP server (Windows blerg) on the 10.0.10.X (NOT MAC OS X SERVER) and everything works perfect, since on the Windows DHCP Server I'm not forced to fill the router/gateway and leaving it blank makes the iMacs have just one router/gateway from the 192.168.10.X lease from the Wifi Router.
Now I'm planning to migrate the DHCP Service to the Mac OS X Server (Snow Leopard Server), I fiddled a bit and found that I can't use DHCP Server on Mac OS Server leaving router field blank and if I type ANYTHING, my iMacs will NOT access the internet through 192.162.10.X since now there's two gateways (from 10.0.10.X that Server Admin panel forced me to fill and from 192.168.10.X that HAS to have one gateway and it's the correct one).
I've tried to fill with the 192.168.10.X gateway but throws a warning saying that is not on the same subnet.
I really don't want to re-route or mix the traffic for many reasons.
So I ask, is there any possible way to NOT fill or bypass or do anything to make DHCP Server service from Mac OS X Server not have a gateway/router?
The only way I'm managing to do it now is to use manually entered IPs on the iMacs, but it's 10 iMacs and I guess for some services like netboot etc I need DHCP.
Cheers,

Lets assume that before you had computers with both Ethernet and WiFi connections, they were able to access the Internet via WiFi and talk amongst themselves via Ethernet. The Ethernet addresses were not (in theory) accessible from the WiFi network and hence not accessible from the Internet. Presumably you intended this for security reasons.
If so, you were completely mistaken. Even if you turned on a Software firewall on each of these iMacs to in theory block traffic going between the two networks you still have a potentially insecure setup. This is because traffic can reach the iMacs via WiFi. Once hypothetical malicious traffic has invaded an iMac via WiFi it can take control over the computer and within that computer reach out via its Ethernet port to other Ethernet computers.
The only way to ensure complete security is not to have any link between the two networks at all. If one of the computers is linked to both then you have a potential path for attacks to travel across.
So what are you really trying to do? If you want two totally separate networks with one having absolutely no link to the outside world then this is simple and is as follows.
NETWORK1 Internet------Wifi Router (192.168.10.250) -----iMacs AirPoirt (192.168.10.X)
NETWORK2 MacPro (10.0.10.100)-----different iMacs Ethernet (10.0.10.X) with WiFi turned off
You could define the default gateway for NETWORK2 as being the DHCP server itself. No computer on NETWORK2 would be able to access the Internet and hence it would be totally secure.
If however you want all computers to be able to access the Internet then you need a link between them. Are you merely wanting to segregate WiFi traffic as it might be insecure and evesdropped on? If so then the following is a better approach
                         WiFi clients (192.168.10.x)
Internet ----- AirPort Extreme (192.168.10.250) ------ Hardware FireWall does NAT (10.0.10.1) ---- MacPro (10.0.10.100) ---- iMacs via Ethernet (10.0.10.x)
The WiFi clients would not be able to directly access your 10.0.10.x network as they are blocked by the FireWall. However if you have say a Laptop that you want ot use on WiFi but still access your server on your internal secure LAN you would do this by having the server run the VPN server component. The WiFi client would then connect via the VPN server and this would ensure all the network traffic going over the WiFi is encrypted using industry standard IPSec encryption. In this second scenario the MacPro (presumably your server) would have the FireWall as the default gateway, and the FireWall would have the Internet router as its default gateway. You could set the Firewall to forward VPN traffic to the server or use the second Ethernet port on the server to accept VPN traffic on the 192.168.10.x LAN.
This is my own setup is something like
                        AirPort
                           |
Internet router --- Public IP range --- (WAN) FireWall (LAN) --- LAN Switch --- Server Port1 for normal traffic
                                                 |(DMZ)                                    |
                                                 +----------------------------- Server Port2 for VPN

10.6.4 Server & iMacs deployment via NetBoot from server

Hi, I have a lab of new 27" iMacs to deploy & a 10.6.4 XServer.
I require help in this.
From studying various sources I have setup one iMac with all our software and created a Disk Utility image by connecting this to the Xserver via FireWire cable.
I have used System Image Utililty to create a new NetRestore Workflow (the NetInstall option is grayed out).
The subsequent image is default enabled in Server Admin NetBoot settings.
However when booting iMac 'N option' the world icon appears followed by an apple logo & then the iMac does nothing.
The server logs shows BSDP DISCOVER & BSDP OFFER sent.
Please advise what am I doing wrong and can someone provide some instructions of how to deploy images from 10.6.4 server.
Thanks

Possibly a DHCP issue as the target Mac needs to acquire an IP
From the System Image manual page 44 http://manuals.info.apple.com/enUS/SystemImagev10.6.pdf
Step 3: Set up DHCP.
NetBoot requires that you have a DHCP server running on the local server or on another server on the network. Make sure you have a range of IP addresses sufficient to accommodate the number of clients that will use NetBoot at the same time. For more information about configuring DHCP, see Network Services Administration.

Fix the Server Admin UI for DNS

Apple.
DNS is a fairly important service as you know. I don't have time to edit zone entries manually and then also adjust reverse entries.
The Server Admin UI for DNS has been broken for a long while now.
Please.
Fix it.
Regards,
Mezza

I agree that the DNS GUI in Server Admin is bad and should never have been released as it is. It should at least have the option to be disabled. That way, the limited and somewhat useless config files the GUI generates wouldn't overwrite painstakenly edited config files. Why does my mail server have to sit on the same domain? Why does my primary DNS have to exist within the created domain? Anyway enough complaining. On to solutions...
I would recommend you download "Webmin". It has a great interface for managing DNS and can do everything you should need. Keep in mind, for all my complaints about Server Admin Tool, it does keep you from adding multiple A records for the same IP which really shouldn't be done. "Webmin" will allow you to do just about anything you want to with DNS. It can be found at:
http://www.webmin.com
Hope that helps.

Netboot in Server Admin is broken

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