[X Servers] Server Monitor can't connect [fixed]

[Marcel Hochuli]

Am 06.08.2004 um 16:59 schrieb James Bucanek:

> Marcel Hochuli wrote on Friday, August 6, 2004:
>> Which was your install procedure? Directly on Xserve with keyboard and
>> monitor, remotely with Server Assistant on another system or the 
>> server
>> attached via FireWire to another system?
>
> It's a headless server, so the keyboard/monitor route was impossible.
>
> This was my first Xserve, so I wasn't familiar with Server Assistant.

You can install and configure a server remotely, if there is a 
DHCP-server. If you only connect the server with the PowerBook (= no 
DHCP available), it takes some minutes (maybe more than five) until the 
server shows up in Server Assistant started on the PowerBook. You can 
even setup the server with Server Assistant in absence of the server. 
In this case, Server Assistant will write a xml-file which the server 
searches on any external disk (e.g. Pocket FireWire, iPod) on the 
following path:
/Volumes/<yourdiskname>/Auto Server Setup/generic.plist
/Volumes/<yourdiskname>/Auto Server Setup/<MAC-address>.plist

The generic file will be fetched whenever no matching file with the 
correct MAC-address can be found.

You can even post these files on a LDAP or Open Directory Server and 
the just installed server will fetch them automatically...

>> I did the last. I connected the Xserve via FireWire on my PowerBook 
>> and
>> installed it that way.
>
> So did I.  I put the Xserve in Firewire Target Disk Mode and booted my 
> PowerBook from the OS X Server Install CDs.  Installed the system 
> directly to the Xserve's hard disk, then reboot the PowerBook using 
> the newly installed OS X Server software.  Configured as much as I 
> needed to access it remotely (turned on SSH and installed Timbuktu), 
> then booted it normally.

This is another trick I use often (one-line CLI-command, change 'admin' 
if appropriate):
sudo '/System/Library/CoreServices/ARD 
Agent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart' -activate -configure -access 
-on -users admin -privs -all -restart -agent -menu
Afterwards you can login with Apple Remote Desktop and install Timbuktu 
(which is far more reliable).

>> It could be, that the installer removed the
>> missing line from watchdog.conf as it is intelligently determining 
>> that
>> the PowerBook is not supporting hwmond.
>
> That's an excellent hypothesis!  If that's the case, then we have a 
> bug to report to Apple.  If Apple supports Firewire Target Disk Mode 
> as an installation procedure, then the hwmond should only be 
> *disabled* in the presence of non-Xserve hardware, but *not* 
> permanently removed from the configuration.

I will try on my next installation in about two weeks, we'll see. Apple 
supports the FireWire install mode as it is listed in the install 
manual...

BTW:
I tryed to start hwmond on a 'normal' G5 which acts as server: no way.
hwmond responds «"PowerMac3,6", hwmond will NOT run on this platform.»  
  :-(


Marcel

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