Please help. Can no longer connect to my Mac Mini Server

Question

Please help. Can no longer connect to my Mac Mini Server

Up until two days ago, my iMacs were connecting to my Mac Mini Server normally. All of a sudden I could no longer transfer files without being prompted to type my password. Enter password and nothing happened, then got an error message stating that I don't have permission to do that. Now, a day later, no acces to my server. Has anyone ever experienced this? Can anyone please help? I've read the Mac mini booklet but doesn't have any troubleshooting info. Thanks in advance.

iMac (27-inch Mid 2010), Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jan 23, 2014 11:36 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Jan 24, 2014 6:43 AM in response to Starvingarchi

As a starting point, log in on the Mac Mini Server directly, and launch Console.app from Applications > Utilities, and have a look around at any error messages getting logged. There'll be piles of cryptic messages, unfortunately. If you cannot figure out what's going on from there, chop off a representative sample — not a gazillion messages — and clean out anything that's confidential or sensitive, and then paste the log messages here.

Also launch Terminal.app from Applications > Utilities and issue the following harmless diagnostic command:

sudo changeip -checkhostname

It's common for DNS-level errors or attempts to use ISP DNS services or the errant use of the .local domain as the server's domain to cause weird problems. You'll need to specify an administrative password for the sudo, and might see a one-time-only informational message about the use of sudo. This command will display some network configuration information and then indicate either no changes are required, or will indicate that one of various common network or DNS services configuration errors has been found.

Reply

Answer 2

Jan 27, 2014 12:24 PM in response to MrHoffman

Hello MrHoffman,

Thank you for the advice. I went into Terminal first and typed in your command and this is what resulted:

Last login: Fri Jan 24 22:39:08 on ttys000

serverX:~ serverx$ sudo changeip -checkhostname

Password:

Sorry, try again.

Password:

Sorry, try again.

Password:

Primary address = 192.168.1.7

Current HostName = serverX.private

The DNS hostname is not available, please repair DNS and re-run this tool.

dirserv:success = "success"

serverX:~ serverx$

I'm not very experienced with programming or coding, but this message seems to indicate that there's a problem with DNS just like you noted. I've highlighted the note in bold...What can you make of this or the logs from console below?

Below is what I found in Console:

1/24/14 8:55:08 AM com.apple.launchd[1] *** launchd[1] has started up. ***

1/24/14 8:55:19 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.NotificationServer[73]) Suspicious setup: User "jabber" maps to user: _jabber

1/24/14 8:55:25 AM edu.mit.Kerberos.kadmind[58] kadmind: starting...

1/24/14 8:55:27 AM org.jabber.jabberd[53] ERROR: Could not create /var/run/jabberd: Permission denied

1/24/14 8:55:27 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (org.jabber.jabberd[53]) Exited with exit code: 1

1/24/14 8:55:27 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (org.jabber.jabberd) Throttling respawn: Will start in 1 seconds

1/24/14 8:55:28 AM org.jabber.jabberd[130] ERROR: Could not create /var/run/jabberd: Permission denied

1/24/14 8:55:28 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (org.jabber.jabberd[130]) Exited with exit code: 1

1/24/14 8:55:28 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (org.jabber.jabberd) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds

1/24/14 8:55:28 AM com.apple.printservice_LPR_mDNS_Plotter_Epson_7600[70] Registering Service Plotter Epson 7600._printer._tcp port 515 TXT txtvers=1 qtotal=1 rp=Plotter_Epson_7600 pdl=application/postscript ty=$null$

1/24/14 8:55:28 AM com.apple.printservice_LPR_mDNS_Plotter_Epson_7600[70] 8:55:28.703 Got a reply for service Plotter Epson 7600._printer._tcp.local.: Name now registered and active

1/24/14 8:55:30 AM org.jabber.proxy65[52] /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/Extras/lib/python /twisted/persisted/sob.py:12: DeprecationWarning: the md5 module is deprecated; use hashlib instead

1/24/14 8:55:30 AM org.jabber.proxy65[52] import os, md5, sys

1/24/14 8:55:30 AM org.jabber.proxy65[52] /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/Extras/lib/python /twisted/python/filepath.py:12: DeprecationWarning: the sha module is deprecated; use the hashlib module instead

1/24/14 8:55:34 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[174] (com.apple.ReportCrash) Falling back to default Mach exception handler. Could not find: com.apple.ReportCrash.Self

1/24/14 8:55:35 AM ServerScanner[200] Preference says we shouldn't scan

Thanks!

Reply

Answer 3

Jan 27, 2014 5:08 PM in response to Starvingarchi

Your local DNS services are offline or misconfigured; if you're running this on a NAT'd network, here are some (detailed) instructions on setting up OS X Server DNS. (That web site is temporarily offline, so here is a cached copy of that article.) Key question here is what happened to local DNS, as presumably that was already set up and operating. (if not, well, things do get weird when DNS goes sideways.)

What's posted in the log is an iChat server / Jabber error and some other probably-not-related log chatter.

Reply

Answer 4

Jan 27, 2014 5:31 PM in response to MrHoffman

Hi MrHoffman,

Don't how my DNS got misconfigured because I was working on my computers as I had for 3+ years when all of a sudden I couldn't transfer files. I will read through the article and will let you know what happens. I was close to just restoring the system out of frustration.

Reply