Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment

Debug Logging Profile Manager on macOS Servers

OS X Server stores most logs in files that are in the /Library/Logs/ProfileManager directory. Logs are split up between php, devicemgrd.log, scep_helper.log, servermgr_devicemgr.log, profilemanager.log and others. In my experience, if there’s a lot of errors at first, or if the service doesn’t work, just reformat and start over. But, once a server is in production, you don’t want to re-enroll devices after you do that. So, as with all good error prodding, start with the logs to troubleshoot.

By default the logs can appear a bit anemic. You can enable more information by increasing the logging level. Here, we’ll shoot it up to 6, which can be done with the following command:

sudo debugDeviceMgr 6

Debug levels go all the way to 9, but at that point things get… Noisy. And to turn it back off, use:

sudo debugDeviceMgr 1

Basically, this command sets the required services in /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ to debug mode as well as /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/share/devicemgr/config/com.apple.DeviceManagement.postgres-debug.plist and /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/share/devicemgr/config/com.apple.DeviceManagement.postgres.plist to configure debug mode. In other words, it touches a lot of services. And given how chatty some can be, only leave logging levels higher than I’d say 2 in the event of short-term troubleshooting.