Q: Enabling Push Mail on iOS 9 devices.
Is it possible to enable push mail for iOS devices configured to an OS X Server 5 Mac? On all the devices currently configured to my home server, the Push settings available for this particular account are "Fetch" and "Manual".
I have all the relevant APNS ports open on my firewall and an active certificate for APNS on the server. I'm sure prior to OS X Server 5 there wasn't an issue.
For the record, all devices are set up using the built in "OS X Server" option in iOS 9 for Mail, Contacts and Calendars.
Mac mini, OS X Server, OS X Yosemite (10.10) DP5
Posted on Dec 23, 2015 5:25 AM
Hi. Yes it works on OS X Server 5, I recently moved from Mavericks + Server 3 to El Capitan + Server 5 (Server 5.0.15) via clean install. I didn't even consider upgrading the machine, I put an SSD drive in my Mac mini to replace the HDD, virtualised the old server while installing the new one and set things up new.
It definitely works. On the client side — various iPhones & iPads — I didn't need to do anything as they were configured for push with old server. Without knowing or getting into your setup if I could share the standard setup and mention some specific points relevant to upgrading/migrating.
You don't need to open incoming ports on your firewall for the APN service (as far as I am aware) it doesn't work that way, of course you need outgoing ports open from your Internal (private IP address) LAN to the Internet. I am assuming you have though incoming ports open for secure IMAP (993) and SMTP Submission (587). The Push Mail setup doesn't actually 'push' mail to mobile devices, it tells them mail is there and they have to go get it.
Again, not knowing your exact setup, I will share with you mine which is working and which is combination of new server + existing client devices.
You have turned on APN in OS X server? If you click 'Edit Apple ID...'
You will see this (all my specific information has been sanitised) I don't use my personal Apple ID for this, I made a dedicated 'system' Apple ID, but that is not strictly a requirement obviously. Now it may be that because you did an upgrade (new OS X Server) that you need to refresh your APN certificates. I am pretty sure that these certificates are installation specific. Obviously, in my case, I needed to redo them as I had a totally new server. Anyway, to check yours click on 'Manage your certificates' this will take you to the Apple Push Certificates Portal website.
Log in and check your certificates.
If things continue to not work and IF you wanted to reset everything you can.
- Turn off APN on your server.
- Open Keychain Access on your server
- Select the System keychain and Category 'Certificates'
- Find all certificates APSP:(long identifier), there should be five. If you have more than five, i.e. double set, then that will be part of your problem, the certificates you have on your server must match the ones on the Apple Push Certificates Portal website.
- Delete all the certificates
- Reboot the server — just in case...
- Go to the Apple portal and revoke the set of certificates.
- Open Server app
- Turn on Apple Push Notifications (APN) again. Enter your Apple ID.
- Click on 'Manage your certificates' log onto Portal, check certificates
- Open Keychain Access on your server - check that you have new certificates and that their expiration date match that on the Portal
- Go to a mobile client and check. You may need to touch turning off|on push settings and editing account settings to get them to 'refresh'.
I can advise that it does work though where my situation was somewhat like yours changed server and existing mobile clients.
Posted on Dec 28, 2015 2:53 AM


