The Server app is great. But when you go making changes to some things, you’re just going to cause problems. I know, you’ve been told that host name changes and IP changes are all kinds of OK at this point; “look, Charles, there’s a button!” Well, go ahead, click it. Don’t mind me, you might just be alright. But then again, you might not…
And when you’re not, you’re likely going to be restoring some stuff from backup. But just before you do that restore, let’s try one more thing. Let’s try and rebuild some certificates and configuration settings that shouldn’t impact actual service operation. Let’s try to reset Server.app and let a fresh install of the Server see if it can fix issues.
Now, I want to be clear, this is the last resort before restoration. I’ve had a lot of luck with services remaining functional and preserving settings when I do this, but don’t expect that. Basically, we’re going to do what we looked at doing back in ’09 with AppleSetupDone but one designed just for servers, so the file is in the same place (/var/db) and called .ServerSetupDone. To remove it:
sudo rm /var/db/.ServerSetupDone
Good luck and hope it at least buys you a few hours for people to stop chasing you with pitchforks, long enough to grab a power nap before you clean install the box…
