Snow Leopard server with multiple back ups

Im hoping someone can help me.
I have a Mac mini server running snow leopard.
I currently use time machine to back up to second install harddrive.
I need to add another harddrive to back up to is this possible with snowleopard.
The second drive would be using time machine for the backup.
Any advice would be appreaciated.
Thanks
Greg

Hi Greg,
With Snow Leopard it is not possible to select multiple destinations with TimeMachine.
You might consider using another backup tool like Carbon Copy Cloner to get another backup otherwise upgrade to Mountain Lion so you can choose more than one destination.
In the end an upgrade might be the best way to go.
Goodluck!
Jeffrey

Similar Messages

Setting up Snow Leopard Server with Address Book, iCal for Small Business

Hello Folks,
I have a small business with 2-3 people and I want to setup Snow Leopard Server on a Mac Mini. I have everything in place, RAID, Backup drive etc.
What I need is a guide on how to setup the server correctly and how to setup Address Book Server, iCal Server, DNS, etc. I was in IT a long while back but have gone back to my creative roots and sworn off IT but I am in a situation where my IT guy's wife is pregnant so he is busy painting the baby's room, etc.
I was looking at Snow Leopard Server for Dummies and a few other books. Do you guys have any suggestions on resources for me to read or research that would give me very straightforward steps in getting this setup. I am at a point where I can re-install from scratch if needed.
For the ease of those that might respond let's assume I know my way around Mac and general networking as a whole.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
Cheers,
Jason

Hi Guys,
First of, I will give you a brief background on me regarding networking as a mac user since 1994. I can setup and network multiple macs without a server in our home and small office. Turning file, print and internet sharing with a regular Mac OS X client version at no problem at all. This would be my first time setting up a Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server.
I'm in the same boat as Jakekub but we do not have a static IP from our DSL provider. We just bought a Mac Mini Server for our small office with 3 iMacs and 1 MacBook. We will just use the server for internal usage and to centralized things out and use some of server's features like Address Book, Mail, iCal etc. I've search the forums and found Orhidy's post here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2148553
I even followed the sample IP Address, Subnet Mask, Router, DNS Server and I think I had it correctly setup initially. And I think I got it all running on the basic setup base on his instructions. So I tried to test my DNS settings via Terminal > hostname then got answer as
servername.companyname.private
And double checking DNS again with a command: sudo changeip - checkhostname and was given an answer of:
Primary address = 192.168.1.192
Current Hostname = servername.companyname.private
DNS Hostname = servername.companyname.private
The names match. There is nothing to change
dirserv:success = "success"
But here's another one that bugs me. I tried to follow from "Mac OS X Snow Leopard for Dummies" the command line:
NSLOOKUP hostname
and got an answer of:
;; Got SERVFAIL reply from 192.168.1.192, trying next server
Server: 192.168.1.1
Address: 192.168.1.1#53
** server can't find hostname: NXDOMAIN
So does it mean that I still haven't configured my server properly?
Thank you all for the help in advance!
dive

Can I use Snow Leopard Server with Windows clients?

Mainly for e-mails and calendars. I have small office with 12 windows computers from XP to Win 7 and MS Office from 2003 to 2007. Will Snow Leopard Server work with that?

Can Mac OS X Server do this? Sure.
You're going to be learning a whole lot about running a server, regardless.
You really need to sort out what you have here and where you want to be, and how to upgrade or replace yor migrate your environment, and before you add the substantial increase in complexity of serving Windows from Mac. If you can't get off of Office circa 2003 or similarly old software, what are you going to do when you find, say, an incompatibility, or a need to migrate mail clients? Who are you going to call for help?
I'd guess that Small Business Server (SBS) is likely your best target here.
AFAIK, Exchange Server (which I'm guessing is what you're using) supports larger mailboxes in newer releases.
Look at the sustaining costs for what you're considering purchasing, too. How much it'll cost to configure, deploy and maintain the box and the network. Up-front costs are an obvious consideration, but maintaining many boxes and many versions itself introduces costs.
The arrival of Lion Server next month does not change my opinion. (And I'm not usually suggesting Windows and Windows Server boxes, either.) (And with the arrival of Lion and Lion Server, I'll follow my usual approach and not look to upgrade to the first release of that (or any other) new platform, if there are business-critical functions and services involved. You need time to debug and test the deployment.)

Snow Leopard Server with Lion Server for APNS

Hello Everyone,
I'm wanting to keep my Snow Leopard Server (Xserve) setup in place its working great, and cant afford to have any down time on the company network. What I would like to do is setup up an additional Mac Mini with Lion server to handel just the APNS. Is this possiable.
I would be running all of the services, mail, OD, addressbook, caladar, on the Snow leopard server but want to use Lion Server to push out and manage some Lion clients, and iPhone with a second server has anyone done this, can this setup work?
Thanks!
Robert

Hi Robert
"Can you provide the basics for setup?"
Apart from making sure DNS is configured correctly - as always - there's not much else you need to know. Server has to be configured as an OD Master. It does work with the default self-signed certificate although Apple do recommend you purchase one from a CA such as Verisign. I mention Verisign because it's trusted by the US Government. Once you've got your push notification certificate from Apple, enable the relevant option in the Server App. From there create the enrolment profile and key in the relevant url in your IOS device. The rest is fairly obvious. If DNS is not properly configured for your network this part probably will fail.
"Can this all be completed in server admin, or the new server.app?"
AFAIK Server Admin is not involved with APNS.
"Did you just bind Lion Server too Snow Leopard Server, connect to another OD, or replica?"
This was on a publicly accessible server that was its own OD Master. Provided things are configured correctly I can't see why it can't work with an environment that's behind NAT.
"What do I setup after this?"
Apart from making sure DNS is configured properly as well as the tip regarding trusted certificates I can't think of anything else? From what I've seen MDM in Lion Server is very good and what's more quick on the devices I tested. I only tested IOS devices and testing was done 'over the air.' You can still use the ICPU assuming you kept a copy of the download?
HTH?
Tony

Can you use Snow Leopard Server with Timewarner Road runner for file sharin

I have Time Warner Roadrunner service for internet. I have there fastest package. they said it has a dynamic ip address. If you are using Snow Leopard Server and I want todo File sharing upload and downloads to my Macpro do I have to have a static ip address or is there a way around this. The Static ip address accounts are expensive
Also from your experience. if I have 12 people uploading and downloading files willt his bring my browsing in safari to a crawl?
thanks

You need to first check with your provider to see if that service is even allowed (often it is not). You may have to subscribe to a commercial or small business service to set up an FTP or other file sharing server.
Actual performance depends upon what your upload capacity is, and how much of that is being used by the total users using the service. It is possible a single user downloading files from your server will consume your entire pipe. OTOH, it might support hundreds of simultaneous users, if they are each using a small amount. In reality, your link capacity will be shared by all users regardless of the number of users.

Windows VNC clients cannot connect to Snow Leopard Server native VNC server

I am resurfacing the following related comment made in another post that discusses the same issue I am having with VNC on Snow Leopard. This is still an issue and I cannot connect to our Xserve's Snow Leopard Server with a VNC client on Windows.
I don't want to install another third party VNC server onto our SL Server, and am looking for a VNC client for windows that will connect to our SL Server.
Does anyone have any solutions?
== QUOTED TEXT BELOW ==
Re: Newbie: Connect Windows -> OSX Server
Posted: Nov 4, 2009 9:26 AM in response to: Antonio Rocco
I would politely disagree. Yes, definitely, the Mac 'Screen Sharing' app works a treat, and Apple Remote Desktop.app works as well, but I am coming from a Window's PeeCee.
For me, connecting to my 10.5(.8) Server via tightvnc gives 'Server did not offer supported security type!". Using RealVNC to this machine states "No matching security types Do you wish to reconnect to ... ?" a telnet to this AppleVNCServer service (port 5900), shows RFB 003.889 *, or Remote Frame Buffer Major 3, minor 889.
Also, connecting to multiple 10.6(.1) Clients with Tightvnc correctly asks for a password but then hangs at "Status: Security type requested". Using RealVNC opens, connects, asks for authentication, and exits. Telneting to this AppleVNCServer service (port 5900), also shows RFB 003.889 *.
The Current Version of the protocol is supposed to be 3.8, that is Major version 3, minor version 8. Not 80 or 800 but Eight). http://www.realvnc.com/docs/rfbproto.pdf and I believe that tightvnc only supports up to version 3.7.
On each station I have installed the 'old' OSXVnc.app as a service (to a unique port). OSXVnc utilizes protocol 3.3 and I can control them successfully, but that is of my own doing because of this issue.
Now JollysFastVNC works a treat to any machine I have EVER tried to connect to. I have not tried COTVNC or any of the others (too slow for me, when they wer e around)
Also, I just noticed that RealVNC states that their free and personal version will not connect to Mac OSX (x86 and PPC) but the Enterprise one will. I just Dl'ed the Enterprise Viewer and it gave essentially the same thing ('protocol is not valid' message, even after it asks for a password). Anyway, I am not here to hijack this thread, just trying to keep the info flowing and open.
Maybe I am the only one with these problems but the bottom line is I cannot use Real or Tight, or UltraVNC to administer my server or clients as long as AppleVNCServer gives out the 003.889 protocol version.
Peter
* The ProtocolVersion message consists of 12 bytes interpreted as a string of ASCII characters in the format "RFB xxx.yyy\n" where xxx and yyy are the major and
minor version numbers, padded with zeros.

Searching on the net brought me to the same solution that Mr. Hoffman found as well, I was a bit skeptical at first but since he recommended it, and all my other attempts failed, it was a last resort and I have some additional notes of my own for a successful solution. Read the two links below first before doing anything, as they contribute to the solution in tandem.
http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=7221295&postcount=20
http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=9081641&postcount=28
I should probably just create an entirely new post with all of the steps that worked for me, but it's rather straightforward nonetheless.

Snow Leopard Server vs MobileMe

I am considering purchasing the new Mac Mini with Snow Leopard Server installed on it.
Our small two location office has been using MobileMe quite satisfactorily for the last two years and I wonder if Server could replace its functionality. We have about 4-6 people with MobileMe accounts.
Specifically. the ability to log into any Mac and setup a separate user account on that Mac to sync my email, contacts, calendar, and dock to automatically using the built in apps, NOT the web client. Will I be able to still do this with any Mac and can I also get access to this info from a PC based computer through a web browser if need be? We also have 3 people using iPod touches (since we don't have AT&T coverage in this area), will they be able to access the info as before?
Also, we have two offices in different geographic locations, thus one office would only be able to access the server via internet.
The mini-server seems like a great deal, I am just trying to financially justify it.
Thanks.......

Difficulties is the wrong term. I could actually accomplish almost everything with a little time and effort--it just took longer than you may be willing to take away from your business. I'm a semi-retired geek hobbyist, not a businessman who needs it to work right away. I guess it was a matter of comparing Snow Leopard Server with what I already had (MobileMe)...
MobileMe e-mail works perfectly for multiple users on desktops and their laptops. Configuring DNS and DHCP on SLS is daunting. Then you have to tell everyone about your new addresses. Why go through the hassle of changing?
A common Address Book contact list works fine in MobileMe. Address Book is unique to each user in SLS.
We see all of our individual calendars overlaid on one calendar in MobileMe. In SLS, you have to create a Wiki page to see everybody at once.
My iPhone syncs just fine with our contacts, calendars, and multiple e-mail accounts. I didn't try with SLS.
Other SLS Pluses: File sharing is great on SLS. Centralized storage and backup with Time Machine is a real plus. Ditto for automatic backup when the laptops join the network. Our Windows laptops have no difficulties accessing the files on the server. I have approximately 300G of music and photos on the server--everyone can access them and I can use the server as a continuous streaming source for our AppleTV.
Other Negative: You cannot automatically backup a Windows machine (including Windows 7) to the server.
I'm not saying it's not a great product--it's been enjoyable and educational for me--but I suspect that the ROI is limited for a very small business operation. I've enjoyed playing with it--and my family web page and blog are open 24/7--but you can run a micro business operation for less money and less time/hassle.
C.

Snow leopard server is created endless duplicates in OSX Lion clients

I am running a snow leopard server with address book server. My client computer was Snow leopard and have no problem syncing with the 10.6 server in address book. After the client computer is upgraded to 10.7 Lion, the address book application is creating a never ending stream of duplicate address entries in the client computer. It happens to all the upgraded 10.7 computers. The entries just keep multiplying into the thousands until I stop the address book server. Anybody know of this problem and how to fix it??

The address book on my mac somehow duplicated my contacts to the point where instead of about 200, I have about 100,000! The program crashes - if it even opens at all, which is sometimes doesnt - whenever I try to delete more than just a few. And if it doesn't crash, it just takes forever to process. At this rate I need a solid 3 hours to sit here and delete a few contacts at a time! Did you ever figure out how to resolve this problem?

Snow Leopard Server DNS setup

Where is there a step by step setup for making my Snow Leopard Server with DNS? Essentially, I am looking to setup a mail server but seem to be missing what information I need to gather from the folks that host my domain and how to point traffic to my network.

When I started setting up my first Mac OS X Servers a few years ago I had to completely retrain my brain because the MacOS does not follow the traditional nomenclature of Windows Active Directory and DNS setup. That being said like AD for Windows MacOS relies very very heavily on a healthy and properly running DNS system, both internally and externally. So one great resource I found was about 10+ hours of training on Leopard Server over to Lynda.com. I think you can sign up for a month long membership but it's well worth the investment if your looking for some basics thru advanced setup of Leopard Server. Now SLS is much much easier at the setup and deployment and some of the fundamentals of the setup interface have changed greatly (as an improvement) but the videos are still very applicable.
Basically it comes down to the following steps in order to get your website/e-mail/wiki services working.
1. Purchase your .whatever with a registrar, godaddy, doster, network solutions ect...
2. Make sure you have a fully routable PUBLIC IP address from your ISP that you can assign to the WAN (internet side of your router)
3. Contact your ISP and ask then to create an rDNS entry for your .something to the IP address they assigned you. Usually this will look like xxx.xxx.xxx ---> mail.mydomain.com when you test later on.
4. Modify the DNS records with your registrar to point the MX & A record to your new IP. You will log in create an A record for mail.mydomain.com ---> xxx.xxx.xxx (your public IP on router) and then you will create an MX record for e-mail which will simply be mail.mydomain.com with a value of 10 (there is usually a screen for this).
5. Once all the DNS is setup and working properly (Can take several days for these changes to take affect and be visible by your ISP) then you can begin the configuration of your router. You will need to determine what IP internally you want your Mac to be. Usually 10.0.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 or other and document that. Program your router to port forward ports 25,110, 80, 143 to the IP that you decided your Mac will be at so those services will be publicly available to you to user. Otherwise nobody will ever be able to send you e-mail or visit your site.
6. This is a good time to check your work and settings by visiting www.mxtoolbox.com and you verify your rDNS (setup by ISP) and your DNS (Setup by you) before beginning your setup of OS X SLS. If everything checks out then start the install if not STOP HERE and fix it because it will haunt you in the long run.
7. Start the install of SLS and at some point the system will get you to the screens at which you input your domain information. If all was setup properly up to now SLS will auto-populate the domain and local hostname of your Mac Server. U can change the local hostname if you wish but the domain name information should reflect your rDNS and A record information of mail.mydomain.com and you can hit next and proceed with the rest of the install.
8. Once up and running you will need to make a small adjustment to the alias of your e-mail. For some reason the engineers at Apple left a flaw in (my opinion) that is as such. Whenever you send e-mail it will go as [email protected] instead of what you really want which is [email protected]. So follow this post below and you will be all fixed up in a jiffy.
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10110723#10110723
Hope this helps.

Snow Leopard Server Question

Does anyone know if I can use Snow Leopard Server with Windows clients? I would like to use it for backup of user folders and for a Wiki.

Does anyone know if I can use Snow Leopard Server with Windows clients?
Of course you can.

Moving accounts from Snow Leopard Macs to Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server

I got my brand spanking new Mac mini today with Snow Leopard Server! So far, we (at home) were managing our accounts on individual iMacs and a MacBook Pro. While I will be getting into the innards of account migration, management etc. I thought I'd post a quick question here; Currently I have an iMac with three user accounts on it (wife and two kids). I also have my own personal MacBook Pro with my account (the only Admin account) on it. We'll soon be getting another iMac for our daughter (who currently has an account on the existing iMac). My idea in getting the Mac mini was to move to and centrally manage all the user accounts in the household on the Mac mini server. What is the best way to accomplish this? What is the best way to move the existing accounts on to the server?
Additionally, I'll be looking into connecting the two stationary iMacs with Powerline Ethernet (where one runs Ethernet over existing electrical wires in the walls). My other option would be to rely on wireless network (I don't think this would be a good idea for if I am going to be placing the user accounts on the server and there needs to be a constant on, reliable connection between the server and the client computers as they will be talking to each other a lot!). Any thoughts on Powerline? (I am not looking forward to installing Ethernet cabling behind walls :o))
What say the wise men of Mactopia?!
Thanks,
Kenneth.
P.S. I had earlier accidentally posted this in the corresponding section of Mac OS X instead of the Mac OS X Server forum.

Ok so the esiest way to explain this is to tell you what i just went through.
I have 3 user accounts. All the accounts are network Users meaning that there home folder are kept on the server. I was having a problem with Time Machine giving me error 41 and error 11. After scratching my head for 2 days I ended up copying (Drag-n-Drop) the Home Folders to an External Hard Drive. I then proceeded to erase both of the internal hard drives on the mac mini and did a fresh local install of the Server OS.
Everything was fine at that point. Now this is where Snow Leopard stopped being nice.
I went and Created the user account again using WGM. I let WGW create the home folder and the 9 folder inside. I made sure the short names were the same and the passwords were the same as they were previously.
However, once i Copied files from the external drive to the home folders the permissions copied as well, Which i guess should be expected. So now at this point apparently the UID's of the newly created users wasn't the same as they were before the clean install. I have multiple instances of root listed in the ACL for several folders and also had several instances of System listed sporadically.
Now, This isn't to say that you can't drag n drop because now That I have it all squared away and everything is now working ok, I would probably still drag n drop the home folder off to an external disk, but only because I now know what to do to clean things up.
if you drag and drop be sure to use the CHOWN command and theCHMOD commands afterwards. Take a look at this MacFixIt article: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20013630-263.html?tag=mncol;title
If you copy your local imac users to the home directory on the server you may want to follow the steps on the URL I gave plus you will most likely also have to do the following. In a nutshell you are going to use the chmod command to strip all the ACL Permissions then you are going to use the chown command to re-specify the correct owner and the correct permissions for the network user.
!) Go into ServerAdmin and click on Sharing
2) Go to the users folder you are using and select the user you are going to work with.
3) Click on the Permissions option
4) click on the +sign at the bottom (this will open the users & groups list to the right)
5) Drag the current user from the users list to the owner permissions line under posix section
5a) Click Save
6) Click on the Gear button at the bottom
7) Check the box for Owner Name and Owner Permissions.
8) Uncheck the box for Access Control List then click ok
Once you've gone through that rigmarole you can go back into ServerAdmin and fix the permissions for public and Sites folder which should only take a minute or so.
So the moral of this story and as I found out when i ended up calling Enterprise support is that the act of dragging and dropping user home directories from one server to another, or as in your case, from a local machine to a the server isn't anything that apple recommends or supports. you might want to read through the man pages for "Ditto" or so apple tells me, but honestly now that you know, the steps above aren't all that bad. It's true Knowing IS half the battle!
have Fun!
P.S. FWIW If you run into problems and have to call Enterprise Support be prepared for them to tell you to refer to the user Guides. So reading those would be to your advantage even though they aren't the easiest things to understand unlike apple's consumer products user guides

The Windows SMB feature has file locking if multiple users are accessing the same file. Does Snow Leopard Server File Sharing (AFP) provide similar features?

The Windows SMB feature has file locking if multiple users are accessing the same file. Does File Sharing (AFP) on Snow Leopard Server provide similar services?

Were you ever able to solve this problem. I'm having similar issues since upgrading to snow leopard. Four macs connect to a Windows Server 2003 for shared files. Each user has full permissions & when we "get info" it shows read & write permissions. Two of the computers were running 10.4, two were running 10.5. Everything worked properly until upgrading to snow leopard. Some files let me copy, move, delete. Others either just hang up or we get a "no permission" error. Also getting a "pdf is in use" error, even when the file/folder doesn't contain a pdf. We had our IT rep check the server who said everything is in working order. They don't represent macs any longer but feel that it's a mac problem. I would have to agree since this problem only started after the upgrade, and the one machine that was not upgraded (still running 10.5.8) is not dealing with these problems.
Lastly, I would install 10.5 back on all of the computers if I could, but the leopard disk that came with one of the computers wouldn't work with the 2 machines running 10.4 and I didn't see it available at the apple store. I'll buy it if it's still available, but why wouldn't the disks that I have work?
Thanks for any help

How do I uninstall Snow Leopard Server, so that I can revert back to Snow Leopard?

I was experimenting with the Snow Leopard Server DVD on my MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard. I started the installation process, expecting that it would not install on the Startup Disk, as I had not booted from the DVD.
To my surprise it installed!
How do I "uninstall" or revert back to Snow Leopard, without have to take such drastic steps that I would lose all of my Snow Leopard System folder contents (such as doing a wipe and starting over with a fresh Snow Leopard install)? Thank you.

I assume by "back up your data" you mean a Time Machine backup?
Preferably, yes.
I have a BootCamp partition to run Windows; does Time Machine back that up, too?
No, but it won't be affected unless something goes wrong. You still need to back it up, of course, just like all other data.

Snow Leopard Server combined with Snow Leopard OS

I have a MacPro (4x1 TB Drives, 16GB, RAID Card, 2 x Quad-Core Intel Xeon 2.8 GHz) that has MacOS 10.5 installed (including MS Windows running under VMWare Fusion).
The RAID setup is shown at https://www.radii.org/doc
The computer is used as an everyday workhorse (running OS 10.5.7 on Volume RS1, with Volume R1V2 partitioned into 2 data and file/document stores).
Given the specs of the machine, I plan to setup Snow Leopard Server (Raid 0) also — on a separate partition so that when the system on RS1 freezes, the server does not have to be crashed also.
Is there any advantage in partitioning the volume OSXSERVER to install Snow Leopard Server to perform a number of tasks:
1. provide first level backup and coordinate backup of data to an external/offsite filestore in the clouds for two Microsoft Small Business servers, plus about 5 Mac and Windows desktop machines
2. Provide a mail server
3. iCal server
4. address book server.
The above assumes that I can run both OSs simultaneously — is that possible, or does the system for everyday usage need to be virtualised within the Server OS?? If not, which OS will manage access to the processors?

I guess my biggest concern is the frequency with which Mac OSX gets itself tied in knots and a reboot is the only way out of the mess.
I haven't seen that myself, personally. About the only time any of my machines get rebooted is after software update.
Of course, server systems tend to be more focussed than client systems, so that might help too - the server is typically setup, configured and left to do its thing. It's not like you're constantly launching and quitting different applications throughout the day.
However, I know from years of experience with desktop systems in a variety of flavours that they will need to be rebooted at least once a week.
Ahh, there's the Windows-thinking coming through.
I have Mac OS X Server systems that, quite literally, have not been rebooted in years. Most of them have months of uptime. Of course, this means that not all my systems are running the latest OS updates but that's a call I've made.
in general, the smaller the capacity (memory, speed, HD) the more often they need to be rebooted.
Sure, but that's a matter of right-sizing your server for the load you're putting on it.
Again, there's a difference between client and server installations - client systems tend to jump between active processes with minimal background processing, whereas server systems tend to run more focussed tasks.
I have found that software such as MS Office has been highly unreliable in the last couple of years — I still get Excel saying that it 'had to close' sometime in about 10% of the times I am using it.
Right, but you're not running Office on your server, right?
I was hoping there would be a better solution than having to reboot the server — or crash it when the system freezes with a kernal panic brought on by a desktop app
Sure - don't run a desktop app on your server
If you do see that need, then run another virtual machine for your desktop apps. That means you've got one 'master' OS running multiple virtual machines - one per server process, plus another one for desktop/GUI apps.
Or, run all your server processes on a single server with sufficient resource (CPU, disk, memory, etc.) for the tasks you're running, and get an iMac or a Mini for those desktop tasks. Be cheaper that way, anyway.

Unable to access gateway and DNS via VPN (L2TP) with Snow Leopard Server

Summary:
After rebooting my VPN server, i am able to establish a VPN (L2TP) connection from outside my private network. I am able to connect (ping, SSH, …) the gateway only until the first client disconnects. Then i can perfectly access all the other computers of the private network, but i cannot access the private IP address of the gateway.
Additionally, during my first VPN connection, my DNS server, which is on the same server, is not working properly with VPN. I can access it with the public IP address of my gateway. I can access it from inside my private network. A port scan indicates me that the port 53 is open, but a dig returns me a timeout.
Configuration:
Cluster of 19 Xserve3.1 - Snow Leopard Server 10.6.2
Private network 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 -> domain name: cluster
-> 1 controller, which act as a gateway for the cluster private network, with the following services activated:
DHCP, DNS, firewall (allowing all incoming traffic for each groups for test purposes), NAT, VPN, OpenDirectory, web, software update, AFP, NFS and Xgrid controller.
en0: fixed public IP address -> controller.example.com
en1: 192.168.1.254 -> controller.cluster
-> 18 agents with AFP and Xgrid agent activated:
en1: 192.168.1.x -> nodex.cluster with x between 1 and 18
VPN (L2TP) server distributes IP addresses between 192.168.1.201 and 192.168.1.210 (-> vpn1.cluster to vpn10.cluster). Client informations contain the private network DNS server informations (192.168.1.254, search domain: cluster).
_*Detailed problem description:*_
After rebooting the Xserve, my VPN server works fine except for the DNS. My client receives the correct informations:
Configure IPv4: Using PPP
IPv4 address: 192.168.1.201
Subnet Mask:
Router: 192.168.1.254
DNS: 192.168.1.254
Search domain: cluster
From my VPN client, i can ping all the Xserve of my cluster (192.168.1.1 to 18 and 192.168.1.254). If i have a look in Server Admin > Settings > Network, i have three interfaces listed: en0, en1 and ppp0 of family IPv4 with address 192.168.1.254 and DNS name controller.cluster.
The DNS server returns me timeouts when i try to do a dig from my VPN client even if i am able to access it directly from a computer inside or outside my private network.
After i disconnect, i can see in Server Admin that the IP address of my ppp0 interface has switch to my public IP address.
Then i can always establish a VPN (L2TP) connection, but the client receives the following informations:
Configure IPv4: Using PPP
IPv4 address: 192.168.1.202
Subnet Mask:
Router: (Public IP address of my VPN server)
DNS: 192.168.1.254
Search domain: cluster
From my VPN client, i can access all the other computers of my network (192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.18) but when i ping my gateway (192.168.1.254), it returns me timeouts.
I have two "lazy" solutions to this problem: 1) Configure VPN and DNS servers on two differents Xserve, 2) Put the public IP address of my gateway as DNS server address, but none of these solutions are acceptable for me…
Any help is welcome!!!

I would suggest taking a look at:
server admin:vpn:settings:client information:network route definitions.
as I understand your setup it should be something like
192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 private.
at least as a start. I just got done troubleshooting a similar issue but via two subnets:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2292827&tstart=0

Snow Leopard server with multiple back ups

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for