Migration assistant for server?

[Whitehill]

Apple has a migration assistant for moving from one Mac to another. It works fairly well, from what I hear. How about moving from MacOSX Server PPC to Intel?

[Giaguara]

I assume you'd want to migrate everything as you didn't specify further??

In Server Admin on the older Xserve, select Open Directory and then click the Archive button. From here you can select a location to archive your Open Directory database as a sparseimage which will require a password for encrypting/decrypting (needless to say, you don't want to forget this password). You can save this to an external HD or start the old server in Target disk mode and access it after seting up your new server etc.

When setting up the new server put the basic information in during the Server Setup assistant, but leave out services unconfigured. After it restarts make sure DNS is configured and forward and reverse DNS lookup is working before going further.

When the new Xserve is setup with forward and reverse DNS is working, and Kerberos realm is identical to the old, go back to the Archive screen in Open Directory and locate where the sparseimage file is for restore and it should automatically promote your machine to OD Master and import your users.

If you plan to have all the same services running on the new Xserve you can go to each service in Server Admin and click the settings button. In the lower corner you will see a little box just above the save button. Click and drag this to the desktop and it will save a plist file that you can drop onto the settings window on the new server to automatically reconfigure the service. Do this before making any extensive changes to services in case things don't work after.

If you'll to change the path in WM, all you need to do is move or create the new share point and make it network mountable for home folders, and then copy the existing Home folders into it. The new share point will appear under the 'Home' tab in Workgroup Manager. Select (shift/command) as many users as you want (probably all except your directory admin account), click the new share point under 'Home' and click save. They will get the new path to their new home folders.

How do you plan on using the old Xserve?

[Whitehill]

How do you plan on using the old Xserve?

I don't. A friend wants to buy it and use it, not as a server, to boost his music capabilities.

Thanks for the tips, especially about the plist button!

[Giaguara]

Ah well I hope he'll enjoy the Xserve then

After verifying everything works and runs as it should, and that everything is copied to your new Xserve (I'd probably double check everything), then it sounds like it will be time to clean the old hard drives and install the system again so that your friend will not see bits and pieces of your server system there. So the Server install disc 1 (preferably the one that came with that older server) in, and launch Disk Utility and select how many times you want the data zeroed .. (and then new install).