Push Notification Issues - Lion Server 10.7

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Push Notification Issues - Lion Server 10.7

Hey All,

Am having a few issues with Push on Lion, it seems to work for a short period of time after setting up, then seems to stop being able to push. Today I woke up to a server running at a constant ~60% processor utilisation and this error repeating itself over and over again in the log...

Jul 29 15:11:05 mail push_notify[105]: discarding message; not connected to notification server

There is also single errors from com.apple.APNBRidge saying "Disconnected from apn feedback server feedback.push.apple.com for topic com.apple.mail.xserver.xxxxxxxxxxxx: error (null) - there is one for each different service push supports and they are straight after connect messages.

Do Push services require any ports opening up? I did have the server set up in DMZ for a while but it still managed to fall over, so I took it back out. However I'd imagine the server is sending notifications out rather than listening in for anything.

I've reinstalled this server around 5 times now and am reaching the end of my patience! Everytime Push starts working then stops, last night Web services fell over and I was getting database connection errors, as there were push notification errors in the log, I un-ticked and re-ticked the Apple Push notification checkbox and things came back up. It's a shame it seems very temperamental as it's such a huge feature. I have this one set with a self signed cert, set up as per when you enable profile server. This is also trusted by any devices testing.

I've turned Push off for the moment as it seems intent on bringing down the rest of the services I have set up 😟 Just turned off Mail and the processor use dropped to almost nothing, restarted it and things are now calm.

Also anyone know how to set up automount's from the command line? My production environment has NFS sharepoints for User directories - for the purpose of being able to use fast user switching on client machines (AFP doesn't support this). Exports are easy as are in a file, but I'm struggling with the automounts.

Any ideas?

Cheers all.

Posted on Jul 29, 2011 8:01 AM

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Answer 1

drr105 Author

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Jul 29, 2011 8:24 AM in response to drr105

Sorry was mistaken, it didn't effect utilisation at all, it's still up around 60%

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Answer 2

Jul 29, 2011 10:12 AM in response to drr105

I'm experiencing this error message as well.

a google search for "discarding message; not connected to notification server" returns this page -

http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/dovecot/dovecot-239/dovecot.push-notify/d aemon/push_notify.m

which appears to suggest that it's trying to connect to the push server (configured in Server Admin) on port 5218.

netstat -na | grep 5218 confirms that the system is not listening on port 5218 at all.

That's about as far as I can get debugging this. Any input, apple?

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Answer 3

drr105 Author

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Jul 29, 2011 10:29 AM in response to darrylfromcalgary

This is the output I get so it looks like mine is listening.

tcp4 0 0 10.0.0.254.5218 10.0.0.254.61605 ESTABLISHED

tcp4 0 0 10.0.0.254.61605 10.0.0.254.5218 ESTABLISHED

tcp4 0 0 10.0.0.254.5218 10.0.0.2.55885 ESTABLISHED

tcp4 0 0 10.0.0.254.5218 10.0.0.254.61596 ESTABLISHED

tcp4 0 0 10.0.0.254.61596 10.0.0.254.5218 ESTABLISHED

tcp46 0 0 *.5218 *.* LISTEN

However mail can now connect to push, however push is still not working. Utilisation still high, lots of proceses of Ruby running, one keeps jumping up with 90%+ utilisation. All are run under _devicemgr user.

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Answer 4

drr105 Author

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Jul 31, 2011 10:55 AM in response to drr105

Just discovered that Profile Manager was eating up the CPU, turned it off for the moment and use has dropped right back.

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Answer 5

bkp

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Aug 1, 2011 8:56 AM in response to drr105

Any luck on this? I got my Lion Server running and managed to get puch notifications on Mail, but no luck with iOS. Appear to have the same problem:

Aug 1 10:20:25 server push_notify[102]: notification server connect failed, will retry in 300 seconds

Aug 1 10:20:28 server push_notify[102]: discarding message; not connected to notification server

Aug 1 10:20:58 server push_notify[102]: discarding message; not connected to notification server

Aug 1 10:21:29 server push_notify[102]: discarding message; not connected to notification server

Aug 1 10:21:59 server push_notify[102]: discarding message; not connected to notification server

Aug 1 10:22:29 server push_notify[102]: discarding message; not connected to notification server

Aug 1 10:22:59 server push_notify[102]: discarding message; not connected to notification server

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Answer 6

sbkeith

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Aug 1, 2011 9:13 AM in response to bkp

I didn't read all the previous posts, sorry - but bkp that error message is usally tied to iChat (that is the XMPP base) Is iChat configured and on?

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Answer 7

bkp

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Aug 1, 2011 9:17 AM in response to sbkeith

iChat is on. Still have not tested if it works correctly. So this error is not linked to iOS devices not being pushed?

UPDATE: iChat Service is off ans still getting the same error.

Message was edited by: bkp

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Answer 8

sbkeith

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Aug 1, 2011 9:21 AM in response to bkp

server_push notify is a generic service that LS uses to serve out several different push notification services. It is not tied to iOS only. In order for your iOS devices to receive push services from LS, you have to install the Trust Profile and Enroll the device with your Profile Manager.

The APNS certificates from apple must be installed also.

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Answer 9

uonjen

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Aug 3, 2011 12:20 AM in response to drr105

I'm experiencing similar issues although it seems to be really intermittent. I can't trigger a reason or a cause for why it is dropping out (very embarassing when trying to show how it works!).

I have the same response to the netstat -na | grep 5218 as darrylfromcalgary

I had to get our network guys to unblock port 2195 to get things going initially. All the certificates are valid and manual enrollment works fine - but pushing out a profile or a wipe or lock seems to be really hit and miss for iOS. Restart does nothing. Running on an older while mac mini that was a clean install of SL and then upgraded to Lion then on to Lion server.

Really wishing this was stable...

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Answer 10

Aug 5, 2011 12:45 PM in response to sbkeith

I tried installing the trust profile from profile manager on my devices, then enrolling devices. Despite the trust profile being properly installed, I got certificate errors when enrolling, so I decided to purchase a properly signed SSL certificate.

After doing this, I am now getting another error when registering devices, here it is from system.log

11-08-05 10:01:06.590 AM mdmclient: Configuration profile contains missing or invalid information for PayloadUUID

11-08-05 10:01:06.591 AM mdmclient: *** ERROR *** [Agent:1000] ProcessOTABootstrapPayload (<CPProfile:-102> The profile is either missing some required information, or contains information in an invalid format.)

I'm guessing that maybe the PayloadUUID is tied to the server certificate and doesn't get updated when the certificate changes?

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Answer 11

Aug 7, 2011 7:15 PM in response to darrylfromcalgary

I'd be interested if you sorted this out; I'm having the exact same issue and can't figure out the cause or source of the problem...

I've also tested the ports, see the machine is listening, but continue to see the same error mesage even though I don't have any clients connected (other than my desktop.)

Any ideas?

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Answer 12

NWFSCIT

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12 points

Aug 15, 2011 4:12 PM in response to darrylfromcalgary

Darrylfromcalgary,

Did you find anything on this error "11-08-05 10:01:06.591 AM mdmclient: *** ERROR *** [Agent:1000] ProcessOTABootstrapPayload (<CPProfile:-102> The profile is either missing some required information, or contains information in an invalid format.)" ??

I'm getting something similar and can't get past it for the moment.

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Answer 13

Aug 15, 2011 4:15 PM in response to NWFSCIT

No, i'm still stuck on this error message. I've filed a bug at bugreport.apple.com (#9905909) but no response yet.

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Answer 14

NWFSCIT

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Aug 15, 2011 4:31 PM in response to darrylfromcalgary

I havn't tried it yet but you may want to try the suggested solution here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3195269

Let me know what happens

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Answer 15

Aug 16, 2011 8:20 PM in response to NWFSCIT

That article is more in reference to the MDM/Profile Manager setup. Push e-mail works on a different set of ports, and as far as I can tell, doesn't seem to work properly.

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