Snow Leopard Server "invalid serial number" due to bridged ethernet

You have two seperate OS X Server configurations.

1. The base operating system.
2. The "guest" operating system.

That means two (separate) licences.

What is meant by "guest"? That's an operating system that is booted and running within a virtual machine (VM) environment. As a "guest" of another operating system, and sharing some of the hardware that is present. A "guest" might be OS X Server, Linux, Windows or most any other system that can be supported by the VM tool, and by the underlying processor and hardware.

A VM implementation might be what is known as a bare-metal VM (which is a VM that is an entire operating system, and booted and running directly on the hardware) or it might be operating as an application within an operating system environment, and the application is then hosting zero or more "guest" operating systems. This depends on which VM software you are using, and potentially how it is configured.

With some VM environments, you can stack VMs atop VMs, which is handy for testing the VM software itself.

And with some VM environments, the hardware available to the guest can be virtualized. This virtualization ability isn't as common in the OS X Server environments, but it is ubiquitous in some enterprise environments.

Yes, if your Mac Pro box has two Ethernet ports, then it has two NICs; that's the same. A NIC is a Network Interface Controller, and an Ethernet network controller is an example of a NIC.

And your DNS is (as I suspected) incorrect. Here are details around how to configure DNS services on OS X Server.

I understand your Linksys limitations. The configuration constraints introduced by that device mean that your network is not going to operate correctly with a VPN that's originating from a remote host using the 192.168.1.0/24 subnet. That there is a technical limit around what this Linksys device is unfortunate. A VPN connection originating from a 192.168.1.0/24 subnet host will not route correctly through to your local 192.168.1.0/24 hosts via this Linksys device, and the 192.168.1.0/24 subnet happens to be one of the most common subnets around. This simply is how IP routing does (not) work, and how folks have trouble if (when?) they get around to needing a VPN.

Some specific Linksys devices can be reloaded with more capable firmware.

The matter of the availability of your SLS key outside of your organization is something best discussed directly with Apple; that's not something the folks here can do much of anything about.

This whole discussion can be easily summarized here:

Yes I am running multiple instances of the same license key.

THAT is your problem. You can't do that - at least under the terms of Apple's license agreement.

Yes, you can virtualize Mac OS X Server, but EACH server instance requires its own license key. It is NOT acceptable to use one Key for the host OS as well as each virtualized OS instance - at least under Mac OS X Server 10.6. The Lion Server license is significantly less restrictive (and costly) and will permit one license key to be used multiple times on the same hardware, but not 10.6

So that's your problem. You are explicitly trying to use the same key twice, and that's what is triggering the error message. Get another Snow Leopard Server license key, or switch to Lion. Either should solve your problem.

MrHoffman wrote:

Thank you capaho, though you appear to be confused over what I am seeking, or the phrasing of my question (to the OP) was unclear. I am aware of what you are writing (both in terms of the VM and the licensing), and am seeking confirmation that the OP is actually running multiple instances of the same license key.

There is no confusion on my part, the OP explicitly stated in a prior comment that he was attempting to use Virtual Box to run multiple servers. I'm guessing that he is attempting to set up some sort of virtual server hosting service but has run afoul of Apple's validation server. It seems to me that this is a rather straightforward license validation issue.

MacSter2008 wrote:

What is the difference between a "base system" and a "guest system"?

In VM parlance, there is the host OS and there are guest OSes. The host OS is the native OS running on the machine. A guest OS is one that is running in a VM inside the host OS.

From an operational standpoint it doesn't make much difference, other than that divided hardware resources can affect the performance of all instances of the OS, but a validation server would not be able to distinguish between the host OS and a guest OS. As it relates to the topic at hand, it would simply see more than one OS running with the same key, which is what a validation server is generally intended to prevent.

MacSter2008 wrote:

I will keep 10.6.8 SLS on the Base system, and try Lion Server on the guest VM system.

That might work if it's possible to do a clean install of Lion into a VM. I wouldn't say that Lion Server is less capable than SLS, the fundamental problem for me is that its server admin tools are a step backwards from SLS and not at a level that I would consider suitable for professional use. That forces you back to the command line if you need to do anything more complex than its simplistic GUI tools can handle.

As far as the host or guest OSes go, both are independently operating servers, so there shouldn't be any significant operational differences between the two. I think the "base system, guest system" concept that was introduced into this discussion clouded the waters unnecessarily. You still need to make sure that both servers have their DNS configured properly.

If you just looking to have multiple different web sites hosted on one physical host, you don't need to do any of this stuff; OS X Server does that out of the box with what Apache calls "virtual hosts" (unrelated to the whole virtual machine stuff discussed elsewhere in this thread) and what Apple calls "sites". No virtual machines required,

Perhaps you are overthinking the problem. Port assignments and DNS are not related. You can run QTSS on the same server you're using for your websites and other services. There are standard port assignments like 80 for web servers, 21 for ftp, etc., and you can't try to bind more than one service to the same port, but you can actually run any service on any unassigned port, as long as your clients know where the services are running.

Apple has designated ports 8000-8001 for QTSS MP3 streaming, ports 6970-6999 for QTSS RTP streaming and port 1220 for QTSS web administration. QTSS should already be configured for these ports by default. Any links to QTSS would need to specify the correct port, i.e., www.yourdomain.com:8000 You need to make sure that traffic is allowed on these ports through both the server's firewall and the router's firewall. These ports would normally be closed in a default security configuration.

MacSter2008 wrote:

Why would I need to configure DNS within my own server?

If you have multiple IP addresses and you're using NAT, you need to have DNS configured on your own server to route to the appropriate local addresses on the host machine.

You only need to worry about NAT if you're using multiple IP addresses. If your server has only a single IP address then you don't need to worry about it.

Perhaps you mean your server with two Ethernet NICs rather than two ports? If you want to use your server as a router or firewall for other computers, then you need both NICs. If you have you server connected to a single router, then you only need to worry about the NIC that is connected to the router.

If you can access the server's websites and mail from the Internet, then DNS is probably configured sufficiently, in which case you only need to work on the QTSS configuration. If everything else is working then QTSS should work also. If it doesn't it's probably a configuration problem with QTSS specifically.