Server Admin can't connect

I don't trust it to act like a plain ethernet, but thats not the problem. I have 18 Xserves on that same switch, on the same vlan, and none of them have this problem. I've also changed it's IP to a known working with serveradmin machines IP and no go. If it were the vlan or something related to the switch and not the local machine wouldn't you expect SA to work on the .local address?

But that's 18 cases that unfortunately don't directly rule out a managed switch or a VLAN being the issue. VLANs and managed switches are entirely programmable, and they're among the first things I check since they're quite often trusted to be correct. But are not verified.

The .local stuff isn't localhost; the former is a LAN address and the latter is 127.0.0.1. As for a .local mDNS address, you can verify that with ping to see if you get 127.0.0.1 or (as is typical) if you get a LAN IP address. And if you're connecting outward from a onto a LAN using a LAN address (and not on 127.0.0.1) then that can be a problem when the local host (localhost) is the intended target.

And to answer your other question, no, I do not trust Server Admin to work outside of a correct and functional DNS configuration; all sorts of stuff gets wonky on Mac OS X Server with bad DNS.

For corporate LANs, those can have the budget and the requirements and the scale and the staffing to have all manner of odd configurations when managed switches are in place. There are some infrastructures that can be particularly interesting here (and yes, without mentioning names); where it's very easy to have an, um, odd or unexpected network configuration in play.

When debugging stuff, I don't trust much of anything.

Right, but my DNS is completely functional for this machine. It's got users connecting to it via AFP and it's serving a database in a functional way. When we first set up this machine we didn't have this problem and set up ACLs and everything just fine. This issue happened completely out of the blue after no changes to our network or firewalls.

ServerAdmin has stopped responding on 2 other SL servers (one on it's vlan, one on a different vlan), but a reboot has always fixed it.

Hi

Not what you probably want to hear but I've never had to do what you're contemplating. I've never seen this problem with SA in 10.3 or later. There has to be something somewhere in the logs I would have thought? Have you repaired permissions/privileges yet? Can't hurt one way or another? Who knows this might actually 'fix' it.

Do you see the relevant entries for asip-webadmin in /etc/services?

HTH?

Tony

Yes; it could be that TCP 311 isn't listening, or that the server daemon has gone off the rails.

Could also be the managed switches are interfering. My networking experience makes me extremely skeptical of managed switch configurations whenever things go weird. Not until after it's all verified. With some of the switch UIs from some of the vendors, it's very easy to get this stuff wrong, too. And yes, a managed switch can nuke access to TCP port 311.

Hi

I guess I must be lucky? Perhaps there's some truth in what Gary Player said once? "The more I practice the luckier I get." And I've had plenty of practice over the years. However there's always a first time. If it's any consolation I've seen other horrendous problems with Server Admin. Just never this one.

One thing you could try is disconnect the Server from the network completely. Connect the network cable to a single workstation directly. Configure the network settings on the workstation to be in the same range as the Server. Launch Server Admin on the workstation. Can you connect now? Is Port 311 open now? Can you telnet to it? Should eliminate anything related to network hardware this way.

Tony

Hi

Humour me, try it and restart the server. You're going to blitz it anyway. What harm can it do?

Tony

So you unplug it from the corporate LAN, and plug it into a commodity unmanaged switch that actually works (Um, oops. was that my outside voice?) and see if it works on a private connection.