[HOWTO] Installing Mac OS X Server on hardware not supported by Server media

[RacerX]

Step by step...
installing Mac OS X Server
on hardware not supported by
Mac OS X Server media

These are the steps suggested by Apple for installing Mac OS X Server on hardware that is not supported by the Mac OS X Server media. The conditions for this procedure is that the version of Mac OS X Server be the same as the version of Mac OS X that shipped with the hardware*. That is to say if you are installing Server 10.4.x, the original OS for the hardware must be some version of 10.4 (this is known to also work for 10.1, 10.2 and 10.3 systems, client and server).

Steps...

(1) Perform a clean install (OS only) from the original media that came with your system.

(2) Once the installation is complete, insert the Mac OS X Server media. Navigate to the MacOSXServerInstall.mpkg (which should be located at /MacOSXServerInstall/MacOSXServerInstall.mpkg on the media) and double click on the package. Run the installation.

(3) After restarting the system, complete the Mac OS X Server Setup Assistant.

(4) Then run software update to bring the system up to the latest version of Mac OS X Server.

At this point both the version of Mac OS X installed at the beginning and the version of Mac OS X Server should be the same.


* It is assumed that the original client version is higher (by a number of updates) than the server version for this procedure, as Apple rarely updates Mac OS X Server retail (boxed) versions while hardware usually only runs on the version of Mac OS X that it shipped with. For example, these steps can be used for installing Server 10.2.3 onto systems that shipped with Mac OS X v10.2.6.

_____________________
References:

1. Mac OS X Server 10.1: How to Install on Power Mac G4 (QuickSilver 2002) or iMac (Flat Panel) Computer
2. Mac OS X Server 10.2.3: How to Install on Power Mac G4 (FW 800) or eMac (ATI Graphics)
3. Mac OS X Server: Getting Started for version 10.3 and Later, page 85
4. Mac OS X Server 10.4: Installing on a computer that won't start up from the Installation disc
5. Mac OS X Server: Getting Started for version 10.4 and Later, page 106

[no1tmorrow]

Will this work with a 10.4.x server copy on a new intel machine?

Thanks in Advance
Thom

[RacerX]

The retail versions of Mac OS X Server before 10.4.7 are PowerPC only. The current version being sold by Apple is Mac OS X Server v10.4.7 which is Universal (works with both PowerPC and Intel* based systems).

Future Intel based hardware that required a newer version of Mac OS X than 10.4.7 (but not 10.5.x or later) can use the installation process above.






* Note that the Server packages on the Server 10.4.7 media will work with Intel Macs with 10.4.4 or later without having to install the OS from the Server media.

[cjagasken]

After I do the above installation, everything seems to be fine OS X server boots up fine and takes me throught the intial setup wizard fine. But then i can't use the login information i just setup in the wizard to access the server settings in Server Admin!! What's going wrong?!