The Server app that installs on High Sierra is great. But sometimes a change doesn’t get committed properly or has a mismatch with a certificate, and the server doesn’t respond properly… 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 if you’re running Open Directory, Profile Manager, or a few other services… When it works it’s a thing of beauty. But when it doesn’t, you might 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 the Server app and let a fresh install of the Server see if it can fix issues.
Now, I want to be clear, this is usually the last resort before restoring a backup. I’ve had a lot of luck with services remaining functional and preserving settings when I do this, but don’t expect that to be the case every time. 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, close Server app and run the following command:
sudo rm /var/db/.ServerSetupDone
Once removed, open the Server app again and then let the Server app run as though it’s new. Cruft, begone! Make sure to check things like server logs in the event that the service goes unresponsive again, and be wary of performing this step multiple times as there’s likely another underlying issue that you shouldn’t be resetting the server to resolve.
