How do I move OS X Server to a different volume from the current?

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Level 2

318 points

How do I move OS X Server to a different volume from the current?

I have an existing (temporary) location on an external test drive. Now that I have Server running, I'd like to migrate it to the startup volume. cloning the entire drive is not an option because of size of the destination drive, the existing drive has many more apps on it than needed (some I don't want to lose but that aren't needed for this install).

Can I simply start a new Server, then migrate all settings and files from the running version?

Can I copy/migrate ALL the Server files? Is there a listing that shows all the files? This topic (HT4974) doesn't list them all.

Mac mini, OS X Mountain Lion, (3,1) 3GB RAM, 2GHz, C2D, GigE LAN

Posted on Aug 27, 2012 3:56 AM

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Answer 1

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Kevin Neal

Level 3

534 points

Aug 30, 2012 3:35 PM in response to HenryS

have you tried Migration assisant, no idea if it works for server, but if both macs have server.app installed it might work?

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Answer 2

HenryS Author

Level 2

318 points

Aug 31, 2012 4:14 AM in response to Kevin Neal

Kevin Neal wrote:

have you tried Migration assisant, no idea if it works for server, but if both macs have server.app installed it might work?

The good news for me is that I wrote down my initial set up (the old, old way) of Server and can change most of my settings from those notes. Tried that and was partially successful.

I take it that you mean use Migration Assistant:

Plug in the external drive.
Run Migration Assistant on the new install.
Select to migrate the User settings - would I have to copy all settings or is there a selection to copy just the Server settings? I have not attempted yet.
Migrate selected(?) settings.

I will look into this. I see from other posts that this has been suggested before but only in going from different version of Server- Snow Leopard to Lion, Lion to ML- and only in an automatic way, when the Server is first installed. I have not seen it recommended for a drive to drive change.

Another question occurs from your post. How do you unistall ML Server? Is there an uninstall tool? Or do you simply reinstall the OS from scratch (e.g., wipe the drive)? Seems a rough way to go.

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Answer 3

Aug 31, 2012 4:41 AM in response to HenryS

I might be wrong but I don't think you can uninstall Server completely though you can disable all the services and remove the server.app, but this may leave some configuration changes intact

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4827?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

What I have done to guard against this was to make a disk image of my freshly installed ML, then made another disk image of ML with server installed but not configured.

This lets me get back to a 'reset' version of ML Server if anything goes badly wrong without a full re-install and also lets me go back to just ML if I ever wanted to.

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Answer 4

HenryS Author

Level 2

318 points

Aug 31, 2012 6:00 AM in response to Kevin Neal

Thanks, Kevin.

I guess that's the best I can hope for. For example, as is my case, the 'backup' Server is installed on a removable drive (that's my target- perfect world approach), I would need to disable all components so as to allow it to be configured to run on any machine it's plugged into. Even so, it still looks to mount drives that were elsewhere and asks for the previous location repeatedly. Is there a way to shut this off without deleting the sharepoints?

Don't see any way to avoid that. Still experimenting. My reset of ML Server is on a removable 160GB portable USB with a full OS X ML install. Even some apps so that I could still work if the Mini's drive or the Mini itself went ker-blooey.

It's kind of strange that is so little in the way of tools to manipulate the Server settings and migration. I think this is something Apple should address going forward and will put in as a suggestion (Feedback), probably at MAS if I can find where to put it publicly.

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Answer 5

Eric.

Level 6

12,260 points

Aug 31, 2012 10:07 AM in response to HenryS

this is old but maybe the command still exists in Mountain Lion. Sorry, I've got too many VMs running at the moment, so I can't check my Mt Lion VM.

I presume you could use serveradmin to export settings to files and then restore them. This is a bit old but the process remains. But I suspect you won't get everything that way. I know that some settings, e.g. ldap binding policies, aren't done with serveradmin but other commands.

The certificates are buried deep. While you can export and reimport what you find in Keychain Access, I'm not sure that will put them where they need to be.

Also, you'd need to shutdown and migrate the postgres db. There's a script here for Lion, which gives you some ideas where the requite files are stored.

I think I'd probably just clone the external to yet another external HD. Then I'd booting from that, use the uninstallers provided with the applications to free up space -- they usually do a better job at cleaning out the stuff that's hidden deep. Then I'd use CCC to something like a selective clone, e.g. leaving behind those unneeded apps.

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Answer 6

Eric.

Level 6

12,260 points

Aug 31, 2012 1:44 PM in response to Eric.

Eric. wrote:

this is old but maybe the command still exists in Mountain Lion. Sorry, I've got too many VMs running at the moment, so I can't check my Mt Lion VM.

Yep ServerBackup is still there. See the comments about ServerBackup on this note about Lion Server 10.7.2+ and Mountain Lion. Yes, it's about Time Machine and Server, but note the comments/commands about ServerBackup.

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Answer 7

Mark23

Level 4

994 points

Sep 2, 2012 12:33 AM in response to HenryS

Take a look here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5381?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

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