how to update Mac OS X Lion Server to macOS Sierra

I've been on the phone with Apple last year for the exact same question. Luckily I still have older versions of Server, so I can use them if I want to. Although it officially is not allowed. But Apple forces you into doing this, because they will not provide installers any more.

Lesson learned for me from this: whenever a new version of OS X is made available, I download it on all Apple ID's that I might ever need it on in the futuren. That way I'm sure that I will be able to get it when I need it.

MR Enterprise level Harris.

This is absolute rubbish, multiplied by a dozen dozens.

What have you got on your mind by posting this ... Nonsense?

Anything or are you just happy to say something, even though you haven't got anything to say?

Typical arrogant Apple community.

@chinabiz21

Ever tried? I did and it works.

- from 10.7.5 upgrade to 10.10 (don’t upgrade to 10.11, it won’t work. The Apple help text is not correct, says Apple)

- if you don’t have 10.10, you can copy it from every person ever downloaded that, it is not bonded to the Apple ID.

- under 10.10 you can buy and install the latest Mac OS Server app with the message, an older Version will be installed.

- with this Version you can update your server services.

- from there yo can install 10.12 and update the server app.

Please excuse my english.

I had the exact same aggravation with 10 X 10.85. I cannot stand that apple does not support any of this properly. If it requires a download then the download should still be available. I spend a ton of money at Apple and perhaps I may have to reconsider in the future. I will go to GENIUS Bar to see what they can do with my Mac Mini and get this fixed

Really disheartening that there are no replies on this. This is an excellent question. They're asking you to download and install the latest server version software to update the OS, but you can't update the OS without the newest server version. It makes mention to download and install OSX 10.10 or 10.11 first, but how can I do that when Apple has cut off the ability to download and install legacy OS?

Speaking to enterprise support as I write this and their response is we'll need to go from 10.7 to 10.9 then from 10.9 to 10.10 then from 10.10 to 10.12.

The first question they ask is, have you EVER installed 10.9 or have any account with 10.9 in its purchase history since it is no longer available in the Apple store? Since I do not, they're going through their systems to see if they can dig this out anywhere (if they don't, what I'm getting here is that if you use Apple for your server then "lol" on your part). The easiest way to migrate a server is to upgrade, backup, and restore from backup on the target machine. Can't do that if you can't update. The alternative here is to rebuild your new mac mini from scratch. What could go wrong there?

So, what they basically just told me is that you need to scour for a 10.9 installation from 3rd party sites and pray you find one because Apple doesn't have any way to retrieve a downloader. I was about to demand for a developer, but found an account myself that actually had 10.9. Currently working on the incremental updates, but if you're not so lucky, you just might be SOL. The account I'm using to pull the downloader is very inappropriate to be using in this situation since it's from one client going onto another client machine. They have assured me the client account will NOT be tied into this mac as OS updates/installs don't tie in accounts, only software (if you need to do it this way, make sure you sign out of the app store before installing the update of the server).

This is a nightmare. Thank you Apple.

I had the same problem, it's ridiculous to think that Apple haven't got a simple solution, even when if you do a clean install you will face the same problem.

Since we have been using the same apple id for the past few years on our apple system we have all the os available. However I do feel for users who have to go to third party when apple have it on their app servers to download for legacy users.

I got tired after installing OS mavericks, so i thought lets try Disk Target mode and it works via that way for me. Please ignore my message regarding clean install as it's misleading you can do a clean install but your hard drive needs to be formatted/wiped.

Note: If you install/upgrade via target mode it will delete all your data.

Do you mean to clone existing system? Then I need to have one in the first place.. correct?

(And the Disk Target can help me to do it in place compared to taking the disk out for cloning or running recovery and restoring from other newer system via Time Machine, if I understand it correctly)

If you are offered the wrong edition of Server, just 'accept' it and it will download an earlier version which is compatible with the OS.