Invalid Serial Number

This is a known issue with the 10.5.8 server update. We had the same problem here, if you have more than one ethernet port coming out of your server plugged into the same subnet, you'll have the problem.

This made our xserve unusable, I had to completely reinstall the software, recreate users, permissions, etc. I only updated to 10.5.7 and will remain there until they fix this problem.

I spoke with Apple Support and they didn't actually say it was a "flaw". They recommended using one ethernet port to run all the services you have, but that just isn't possible for what we do.

From some of the postings I've read here, it's not entirely clear that this is a same-subnet issue.

There's at least one posting around that listed a public static IP and a private class C.

Details on the LAN configurations posted around the forums are not clear.

That Apple is aware of this has been posted.

I suspect we'll know more when Apple has a statement or an HT on this.

(As for subnet addresses, I've run boxes (not Mac boxes) with many NICs. Multi-port PCI-X or PCIe NICs are common, particularly when you don't yet have a 10 GbE network in place yet. I do hope Apple gets this sorted out.)

Same here. After disabling the second Ethernet port, everything works as expected. Nevertheless, Apple should fix this issue as soon as possible.

Same problem 😟 bad Update. I also stopped working the LOM system.
if attempt to Restore LOM Factory Defaults or change LOM IP, I get this message:

*Provisioning Failed*
Failed to provision the LOM due to an unexpected error (0xCB)
...

I do not understand what he says. Just when I start my busines! lucky that I have :P

I hope that they fix this...

have this problem on one of my machines as well.

all the Xserves i have will have an internal DHCP address in addition to an external public address. all of them are working fine.

the one machine that is not working fine and reporting the "invalid serial" has two external public addresses and an internal DHCP address. one service not related to OSX Server is running on the other public IP address.

of course i can't remove that interface from the OSX Server network panel since i have an invalid serial number. how convenient.

actually i just moved both the public IPs to the same NIC (duplicating the interface in network prefs) and so far so good. they didn't need to be on physical separate connections anyway i suppose.

so 2 addresses on one subnet + a 3rd address on an internal subnet... all on one NIC... appears to be fine. start using those 3 IPs on 2 physical interfaces and it goes bad again.

Hi,

Not sure if this will help people out there but I've done this to work round the grey blob issue. This was all done on the server

1. Disabled my second ethernet interface (Configure -> Off)
2. Loaded up Server Admin (Everything fine, all green and no problems with serial number)
3. Re-enabled my second ethernet interface with Server admin still open (had to re-enter the ethernet settings)
4. Closed server admin
5. Loaded server admin and now green blobs!

It still says about invalid serial number but at least now I can manage my services again.

I have to say this is typical Apple with regards to server updates. When we went from 10.5.5 to 10.5.6 it screwed up our RAID card so much we had to get a replacement (under Apple Care). Took three days to arrive! We had 1200 angry students and teachers!!

Actually scrub my previous comment. It worked for about an hour and now back to the same thing!

Please Apple sort this out!! You have really messed up our Xserve!!!!!!

Add our school district's Mac servers to the list of those with the "Invalid Serial Number" error after upgrading to 10.5.8.
Disabling the second Ethernet port has, for now, brought back services. I'm quite concerned seeing like results reported in other posts, only the results do not last. Quite discouraging to think I may have to rebuild two weeks before the start of school............

beesleep wrote:
actually i just moved both the public IPs to the same NIC (duplicating the interface in network prefs) and so far so good. they didn't need to be on physical separate connections anyway i suppose.

so 2 addresses on one subnet + a 3rd address on an internal subnet... all on one NIC... appears to be fine. start using those 3 IPs on 2 physical interfaces and it goes bad again.

This appears to be the only solution. Solved the problem here.

Network preferences --> duplicate primary NIC --> Assign the IP address to it. --> disable second NIC. Do it again for each IP address so that all of them are using the primary NIC.

We're also not happy about having to turn off the second NIC in order to use our legitimately-purchased Server license.

In our case, the second NIC (and IP) is used for QuickTime Streaming Server, which doesn't like sharing with the apache httpd on the first address. So this "solution" is, for the moment, knocking out our ability to stream webcasts live.

// Breandán

I am also having this problem. Although my services were grey then turned green and it seems to be working fine. Using the other port for VMWare. Odd while writing this it's now back to Unlimited-Client License.

Mine is also going back and forth between recognizing the license and displaying the 'invalid serial number' message. Quitting and relaunching Server Admin a few times seems to trigger it back and forth. However, I haven't had any services go down as a result. In fact it seems the the only problem so far is the clutter in my system log reporting a conflicting serial number from its own IP address.

My configuration does have both NICs pointing to the same subnet, just FYI.

Edited by: Marshall