[cfarm-users] cfarm104 updates and likely downtime

[Zach van Rijn]

On Tue, 2026-06-30 at 13:16 -0500, Zach van Rijn via cfarm-users
wrote:
> Hey all,
> 
> 
> The macOS machine cfarm104 will be updated shortly.
> 
> Historically this has resulted in all sorts of problems and I
> do not expect it to be a smooth process. In the best case, it
> will be down for an hour. In the worst case, a few days or
> longer.

History indeed repeats.

After the update, the machine auto-booted into Recovery Mode.

This matches the behavior of the previous update. However unlike
the last update, rebooting it once more was not successful.

I've taken the machine home to work on it. I don't expect that
any data on the system will be lost. I will make a backup of the
critical files and keys, and also the user directories, and then
restore this to a fresh installation of macOS if it doesn't come
back online magically when I boot it up again.

I think these were not designed to accommodate 1000+ accounts
and I'm not pleased that the update process is opaque.


Zach