FrontierStack logoFrontierStack
Home › Migrate › Migrate from macOS Server to FrontierStack

Migrate from macOS Server to FrontierStack

Apple discontinued macOS Server. Move your Websites, DNS, certificates and data onto a modern, maintained stack.

macOS Server — everything switched on17
  1. Websites (Apache)
  2. Mail (Postfix + Dovecot)
  3. Calendar (CalDAV)
  4. Contacts (CardDAV)
  5. Messages (XMPP)
  6. VPN
  7. DNS (BIND)
  8. DHCP (bootpd)
  9. File Sharing (SMB)
  10. Open Directory (LDAP)
  11. Time Machine (server)
  12. Profile Manager (MDM)
  13. Wiki
  14. Xsan (SAN)
  15. NetInstall (NetBoot)
  16. Software Update (SUS)
  17. Push Notifications (APNs)
FrontierStack — the equivalents enabled14
  1. Apache + PHP
  2. Postfix + Dovecot
  3. Radicale
  4. Radicale
  5. Prosody
  6. WireGuard
  7. BIND 9
  8. dnsmasq
  9. Samba
  10. Samba AD
  11. Samba (fruit)
  12. MicroMDM / NanoMDM
  13. DokuWiki
  14. Xsan pane
  15. no drop-in — guidance provided
  16. no drop-in — guidance provided
  17. no drop-in — guidance provided
Every Server.app service and what runs in its place. FrontierStack installs and monitors each one; the last three have no drop-in successor, so the wizard hands you the steps instead of pretending otherwise.

Why migrate?

Apple removed most Server.app services and no longer ships the admin tools. FrontierStack gives you a maintained Homebrew Apache/PHP stack, real TLS, firewall, monitoring and fleet management.

What it migrates

Web files, virtual hosts, PHP settings, databases, WordPress, Git repositories — plus your AddType MIME overrides and the Apache modules your old config loaded. Every step is a checkbox you can turn off.

Sites stay private by default

Migrated sites bind to 127.0.0.1 so they are not exposed to your LAN unless you choose to.

Xsan SAN support

Still running an Xsan (StorNext) shared-storage SAN from macOS Server? FrontierStack's Xsan pane shows each host's role (metadata controller or client), its volumes and mount state, and mounts/unmounts/checks them — on this Mac or any linked server over SSH.

Wiki (team wikis & blogs)

macOS Server's Wiki is gone, but you can recreate it: FrontierStack catalogs self-hosted wikis and serves them from its own Apache/PHP. DokuWiki is the closest match — a flat-file PHP wiki you serve at /wiki, no database — or pick Wiki.js, BookStack or MediaWiki. Content migration is best-effort: the old Wiki kept data in a proprietary collabd PostgreSQL database plus files under /Library/Server/Wiki, with no clean Apple export — so the practical path is to stand up the new wiki and bring pages over from the old wiki's exported/served HTML rather than a lossless one-click import.

Profile Manager (MDM)

Replacing Server.app's Profile Manager means running a real MDM. FrontierStack catalogs self-hosted open-source MDM servers — MicroMDM and NanoMDM (the direct Profile Manager successors) — plus managed options (Mosyle, Kandji, Jamf, Intune, SimpleMDM, Fleet). Migration path: export your existing configuration profiles (.mobileconfig) and re-import them into the new MDM, then move enrollment by re-pointing your Apple Business/School Manager Automated Device Enrollment at the new server (FrontierStack's Apple Business Manager pane reads your devices & MDM-server assignments) and re-enrolling devices. Profiles are portable; the enrollment is re-pointed rather than copied.

Run it all from one Mac app.

FrontierStack installs, monitors and secures the whole stack — locally and across your fleet — from a single native macOS app.

Download FrontierStack