Upgrading Casper server from Mavericks to El Capitan

[mmacpherson]

We currently have our Casper server running on Mavericks and I was looking to get info on any issues that may arise with an upgrade to El Capitan. The main reason for upgrading is to utilize the ability to cache iOS and OS updates since we also use the server as a caching server. Thank you!

[apizz]

Maybe this is just me, but given how new El Capitan is I wouldn't feel comfortable upgrading a production server to it just yet. Is there a particular reason you are bypassing Yosemite? We are running 10.10.4 on ours.

[cscsit]

@aporlebeke What particular issues are you having with El Capitan? The Macs I'm running it with make it run so much better, especially on older Macs. I'm not seeing any issues on my end. Now, I haven't updated my server to El Capitan, but as far as the OS itself goes its been nothing but great in my experience.

@mmacpherson Whatever you do, make sure you do a complete backup of your server that you can restore should something go wrong during the upgrade process. You can either use a Time Machine backup (which doesn't always work for me for restoring), or I sometimes just use Carbon Copy Cloner which is just as fast and easy and has always worked for me.

Also keep in mind that your server will be down during any upgrade, including JSS and you will need the latest version of Server 5 as Server 4 will not work with El Capitan.

[mtruskowski]

One thing to be aware of is more with Server v5 than El Capitan specifically, but you will likely need to modify the Apache proxy config. See here https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/article.html?id=410. Similar issues arise if you are hosting a JDS https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/article.html?id=415. I have not upgraded our server to El Cap yet, but since you need Server 5 as far as I am aware (someone correct me if I am mistaken), these are two issues to definitely be aware of.

Worth noting that Server 5 can also be run on Yosemite. Personally I plan to give El Cap at least one more point release before I even consider it.

[apizz]

@mklos I'm not having any issues. And given the issues with Server v5 that I've heard about and @mtruskowski mentioned, running El Capitan would force you to run v5. Apple has been notorious for having problems with .0 and early updates of its OS's, and while your experience hasn't reflected that I always want to error on the side of caution. I know that most people in the Casper community update almost immediately: the OS, the JSS version, etc., but that's not how our environment works. Unless there is a reason to update, we don't do it during the year, especially on production servers. Maybe it's more because we're a school and can't do any major updates and upgrades until the summer. Not to mention unforeseen issues with software, drivers, etc.

Point being, I don't see a reason to upgrade a production server to latest, less than 3-month old OS when it's such a critical machine.

[cscsit]

@aporlebeke Ahh...I understand now. I'm currently running Server 5 on my Mac servers and the first couple of releases were sketchy at best. It was almost like they didn't even test anything before releasing Server 5.0. The latest release of Server 5 (5.0.15) however has fixed everything I was having issues with, mainly it broke Apache services so I couldn't even get into the web interface of Profile Manager (we haven't migrated our Macs to JSS yet). But...that doesn't mean everything is fixed. We all use different parts of Server in different environments so were all bound to experience different issues.

I get what you're saying though, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Another thing to note is that when running 10.10 or 10.11 I've always had to manually start up the MYSQL server in the MYSQL system preference. It doesn't seem to automatically startup anymore like it did in previous versions unless they've updated something recently. So if you restart and can't connect to the JSS database from the web interface this is most likely why. I just have a TextEdit document on the desktop with the terminal command to start it up and then just run it from Terminal. Sometime maybe when I get some free time (ha!), I'll make it this runs automatically when the server starts up if I can.

[bmarks]

@mklos You just need to create a launchdaemon for MySQL because StartupItems were finally killed for good in Yosemite. It's pretty quick:

https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/osx-installation-launchd.html

[apizz]

@bmarks, thanks for the link! I'd been wondering about that, not that we have to restart our JAMF server ever. So if I created a PLIST file as the page shows and put that in LaunchDaemons I should be good to go to have MySQL startup in Yosemite?

[bmarks]

Yes, as long you you run the launchctl command to load the launchdaemon the first time once you put it in place.

[apizz]

@bmarks cool. Thanks a bunch.