got it. Okay, I figured the error out.
Bevore I upgraded debian to 4.0 from 3.1 I removed the zimbra-packages to have a clean "debian only" system.
Of course, the install script did not propose to upgrade anymore. That's why I fiddled about the install script that the packages "seemed to be" installed already. However, the install-script now obviously relies on the information from the systems' package management system and did not roll out the upgrade steps completely (I think I changed it that way that 5 RC1 seems to be installed). This is definetly my fault, but maybe it would be cool to have a litte check in the install script that inspects /opt/zimbra and does not rely on dpkg?
For now I will reinstall the correct 4.5.6 debs and start over again ;-)
-ck |