An error occurred while configuring as a directory server. Please check your network configuration and try again.

Hi there,

My Mac OS X Server 8.2 got buggered after I did the following steps:

1. Wiped Profile manager using "/Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/share/devicemgr/backend/wipeD B.sh"
2. Clicking the Off button in the Profile Manager section of the Server.app
3. Clicking the On button of the same

Clicking on asks if I want to create a new directory master, but I know that one already exists. Trying to continue confirms this. So, I go and destroy it to start again, but afterward, I get the following error when trying to create the directory master:

I've done this enough times while watching the system log to see the actual error thrown, which is:

Nov 12 22:01:24 srv.domain.com Server[279]: An error occurred while configuring srv as a directory server:

Error Domain=XSActionErrorDomain Code=-1 "A child action failed" UserInfo=0x7fee9516c0f0 {XSActionErrorActionsKey=(

"Creating Open Directory master"

), NSLocalizedDescription=A child action failed}

I have Googled the above and have discovered only a few entries here in these Apple communities, but have found no joy.

Here's a similar threads:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4199369

Interestingly/confusingly, this server has been working just fine as a domain master using different domain names (on separate occasions/setups). It was only after having clicked the OFF button in Profile Manager (after a wipe) that things stopped working.

I could rebuild this server, as I have a backup image of it that I can restore, but I'd rather find out what's broken and fix it so as to hopefully be able to fix it if/when this ever happens to me again, learning something in the process.

That said, I perform the following steps prior to running the Open Directory setup on a the server to try and clean it up as best possible.

Clean up steps:

1. Delete the DNS zone (and all entries).
2. Turn off all server services
3. Delete all file server sharepoints
4. Change the host name at Hardware => SRV => Network tab. This runs the Change Host Name program.
5. Close Server.app
6. Throw Server.app in the trash / Empty trash (I've also just trashed and put back with same result)
7. Delete the /Library/Server directory
8. Clear and recreate System keychain using "systemkeychain -vfcC" to clear out all the certs related to old host name.
9. Delete all the entries in the Login keychain
10. Reboot (probably don't have to)
11. Re-download and install Server.app
12. Run Server.app, which actually retains some settings from the last setup, though I don't know where to clean those.
13. After Server setup, confirm that the host name from step 4 is what I want.

Running "changeip -checkhostname" shows "Success". I'm using an Internet domain name so pinging the "internal" zone (srv.domain.com) resolves with the correct internal IP, and pinging the "external" zone resolves to the correct external address on the Internet.

It would seem like I'm all good to go, but when I try to turn on Open Directory and go through the setup prompts, I get the same "Confirm Settings" error as above.

The *only* way that I've come close to "fixing" this is to cancel out of the Profile Manager. Then, go destroy the open directory that already exists. Then create the domain via the Profile Manager enabling process. At present, this only seems work to for a "private" domain. Neither of the two Internet domain names that I've used successfully in the past work with this (or any) method.

Any advice or clues you can throw my way would be most appreciated.

Thanks,

Kim