OS X Server on Mavericks has been a recurring headache and I’m not sure why I haven’t just moved everything to Ubuntu. The only feature keeping me on it is the caching server for Apple software updates, and honestly with how much bandwidth I have now, even that feels like a stretch. My goal was just to make App Store and OS downloads fast on the local network. Instead I keep getting CSDatabaseError “Connection to DB failed” in the logs.
Running this stuff virtualized in VMware should be the obvious move but the console errors are constant under Mavericks. A disk utility permissions repair gets the server back up for exactly one reboot before the DB connection dies again. Re-running it patches things but the install feels fragile. The full stack trace shows CSConnectionPool failing to open inside CSAuthService — basically the auth database is in a broken state at boot.
I’ve now moved to bare metal with the Assets directory on an external disk, hoping the new setup is more durable than the VM. If everything gets wiped again, at least the data is portable. Not exactly an inspiring vote of confidence in the platform.