Trying to get cal and contact data back into clean install.

Question

Trying to get cal and contact data back into clean install.

I tried doing an upgrade from 10.6.8 to 10.8.2. I didn't expect it to work out so well since I had a ton of things running on the server and I was right, the App Store would crash every time I went to try and download the Server app. No big deal, a clean install is better anyway. Before I tried the upgrade I did a time machine backup, archived my directory and copied all the data store directories for (cal, addressbook, mail, and wikis) to another drive.

After installing fresh, I installed the server app, got all the DNS/hostname things taken care of, and restored my directory from the archive. It's looking good. Users can authenticate against the directory and connnect to and AFP share. The only thing I'm missing is all of my cal, addressbook, mail and wiki data. I know ML has everything in the /Library/Server/service folders but they seem to be organized differently from the SL data store locations.

How can I get this data in the right place? If I just drag and drop, check permissions, will it all just work?

MacPro, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on Dec 28, 2012 4:48 PM

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Answer 1

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Dec 28, 2012 5:07 PM in response to RiverEverywhere

For contacts and calendars, ideally you would export all the data on the clients, and then reimport it to the server after the upgrade.

This may help with the wiki data:

OS X Server: Migrating and copying wiki data from Mac OS X Server v10.6

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Answer 2

Dec 29, 2012 6:56 AM in response to Linc Davis

Hmm I don't think I could do that as I've got about 150 users in a few different locations. You'd also have to make sure you got every user's data exported before turning the service back on otherwise data would disappear off the clients when it looks to the new server. It would probably take me a week to get to everyone.

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Answer 3

FromOZ

Level 3

554 points

Dec 29, 2012 7:22 AM in response to RiverEverywhere

Can understand your 'pain' however if you are/were doing a significant upgrade like this (actually I would, looking at the difference in the apps and documentation, call the move from 10.6 to 10.8 very significant) it would be wise/necessary to inform users up front and tell them the system was going to be offline for a whole weekend.

Then do, as you did, a clean install followed by data transfer and test that all systems are OK. If everything works OK then switch everyone, otherwise go back to prevous version.

Personal Aside: I started with OS X server in ML (10.8.2 & Server 2.2) and it's OK but I have been a bit shocked by the lack of documentation, particularly looking at some of the previous documentation up to (Snow) Leopard, and server settings. I've sort of got the feeling that OS X Server has been treated a bit like Final Cut. I hope that Apple gets a bit more serious about Server.

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Answer 4

Dec 29, 2012 9:14 AM in response to FromOZ

I did inform everyone it would be offline for a few days, so the downtime isn't unexpected. I do have a clone of the pre-upgrade system but it was performing very poorly and needed to be reinstalled anyway. I guess I could set up a machine running 10.6.8 server and rebuid that with the most recent data, get it working correctly and then upgrade that to 10.8.2 and the copy the files to the new 10.8.2 machine. I just feel like there's got to be a better (faster) way to get the data back in.

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Answer 5

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Dec 29, 2012 9:34 AM in response to RiverEverywhere

Upgrading a system with problems is almost certain to make the problems worse, or to create new ones. Your idea of going back and fixing the 10.6 server is correct.

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Answer 6

Dec 29, 2012 7:59 PM in response to Linc Davis

Well after hours of work here's what happened:

I got the 10.6.8 server set up and working well with all the latest data stores. Then I upgraded to 10.8.2 and installed the server app. It sat at the "upgrading services" screen for about 2 hours and finally responded that it failed in seting up the services. However, it did then take me to the Server App and the ones I had configured were turned on. Messages seems to be the only one working. (as long as I don't use my wildcard SSL cert)

Calling it a night but I'm not even sure what to try tomorrow since doing an upgrad seems to be the only way to get this data in a format that I can migrate to a 10.8.2 server.

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Answer 7

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Dec 29, 2012 8:22 PM in response to RiverEverywhere

In my experience, migration of server data between OS versions is unreliable. The last time I had to do it, it failed completely and I had to migrate the data manually as suggested above. If you don't like that idea, you may find it more economical to pay Apple about $700 for an engineering support incident, with no assurance of success of course.

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