Monday, February 18, 2013

Mountain Lion Server: An SSL error has occurred and a secure connection to the server cannot be made

After a recent Server.app update I was unable to log into a Mountain Lion server. 

I deleted Server.app from the Applications folder and downloaded it again from the App Store.  When I launched Server.app after the download it asked for the administrator credentials and then displayed the error "An SSL error has occurred and a secure connection to the server cannot be made."


My solution was to open Keychain Access, click on "System" (under Keychains) and then "Keys" (under Categories) and delete all the keys referencing my server name.  This includes both public and private keys so OS X will prompt if you really, really, want to do it.

I also removed the certificates for the server under System/My Certificates as well as "com.apple.servermgrd".

I crossed my fingers and restarted the server.  I logged in as local admin, launched Server.app and was able to configure it normally.  After the server was up and running I looked in Keychain Access and all the certificates had been re-populated.

Apple's KB on the problem wins the prize for the least helpful tech note ever.  You can see for yourself here:  http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4493.  All they suggest is upgrading to Server 2.2.1.  Guess what I was running when I encountered the error?  2.2.1.  What upgrade locked me out of my server?  2.2.1.  Thanks guys!

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