I thought I would start a thread discussing my success on running Zimbra on a VServer.
BTW.
The HOST machine is Debian Sarge:
http://www.debian.org/
The VServer is Linux VServer 2.0:
http://linux-vserver.org/ What is a VServer
Mostly review the site above, but the short answer is, it allows you to run systems on the one host (or roughly physical machine) as if they were running on their own machine.
A simple example is that you may require two quite different apache versions running on the same machine. Now this is possible already with Apache, but it is difficult with some package systems.
Another, better example is security. You can have a 3rd party PHP scripts running on Apache in a VServer that have no access to other VServers.
Why is this important for Zimbra
I was very excited about installing Zimbra, and did so on a server which I ended up not being able to upgrade to a large enough specification (mostly old memory problems). So I moved to another much faster, newer machine. However this machine also supported a name server and a few hundred IP numbers, including some forwarding (mostly simple rinetd and some iptables - don't ask).
So on and off for a week I tried to get Zimbra to play well with these other ports (which used 25, 110, 80, 443 etc, all ports Zimbra needed). I learnt alot about Zimbra, how config files some times require changing the template, sometimes LDAP and sometimes normal config files.
Although Zimbra has in the Schema support for zimbraPop3BindPort and zimbraPop3BindAddress, only the Port works. This is represented in the "enabled" section of the Schema. So clearly it is one day meant to support it, but not right now.
VServer gets around that problem completely, but there are some gotchas.
WIKI
I have started a page on the WIKI -
http://wiki.zimbra.com/index.php?title=Install_VServer
The wiki is a better place to discuss the actual process, as it will change over time. This ticket i s more of announcement and a place to capture peoples issues, especially if you don't want to directly update the WIKI.
VServer Install
Start with a vanilla Debian Sarge install on the host machine.
If you have things like SSH installed, make sure that you set the bind address to the IP number of the HOST, rather than "0.0.0.0" (all) as it is by default.
Create a sarge vserver (we will call it Zimbra).
Start and enter the VServer
Preparing for Zimbra
The main thing I needed to install and manage include:
- locales - they were not installed
- zmsetup - set the timezone correctly
- apt-get remove exim4*; killall exim4 - you don't want it
You will also need to edit your /etc/hosts (which does not exist by default) and add entries like this...
Code:
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
1.2.3.4 zimbra.blah.com.au zimbra
Where 1.2.3.4 is your real IP number and blah.com.au is your host name.
Install Zimbra
Installing the Debian Zimbra is then easy, standard install script
The Gotchas Postfix binding FROM 127.0.0.1
This one is solved quite simply. In the postfix master.cf you change your local IPs to be the real IP of the box BUT you must also make sure that you set (eg: in Amavis) that only the local IP can connect (otherwise anyone can use your virus scanner).
(I have not perfected the steps here yet)
Amavis
Covered above, you must get Postfix and Amavis talking
I think there was some more Gotchas, I will try and review when I do a new install in the next week and update.
Feedback
Any feedback would be good, other people who have done it this way and issues they have found. I am starting the WIKI page, but it could do with some more work (as does most of the WIKI actually).