Synchronising to a Remote Backup Machine

[parixit]

This is in relations to the article found at:
Scripts to sync to a remote Zimbra backup machine - Zimbra :: Wiki

I have two questions:
1. The article states that "A single remote machine is running the Zimbra Open Source Edition (OSE)" would this be ok for NE customers?

2. Step 2 of the article says to create a file called 'imap_users' with the domain name the username and their passwords. Is there a way around this since we are not able to obtain the user's passwords for security reasons?

I would love to implement a high availability scenario without using a SAN.

We are an higher educational institute and our funds are limited.

Thank you for your help!

[Costa-101]

Answers

1) If you are running NE - I suggest you make good on the backup package available to you.

2) In regards to the feeling of SAN's being expensive.

Openfiler Homepage — Openfiler

Otherwise, look into the auth user option of imapsync - i think that might be what need - but iam not sure 100%.

Hope this helps - please come back if you want to work through this with my help.

support@lcrm.co.uk directly

[parixit]

Costa thanks for helping me out and writing that wiki article. My linux knowledge is very limited so I am going to need all the help I can get!

so i would use imapsync to obtain the user's username and passwords?

I would really like to try out your suggestions from the wiki article because they are step by step and seem pretty easy to follow.

The only thing that is holding me back is getting the user's passwords.

Thanks once again!

-Parixit

[mmorse]

Thanks for dropping in costa! (I pointed him at the thread because it's his article.)
FYI:

Zimbra does support AUTH=PLAIN. You should be able to authenticate as a target user using only an admin username/password and the target username -- no user passwords are referenced in this case.

So you'd have like:

imapsync --host1 source.server.com --user1 username --authuser1 adminusername --password1 adminpassword --ssl1 --port1 993 --host2 destination.server.com --user2 username --password2 password --authmech2 PLAIN --ssl2 --port2 993 --syncinternaldates --subscribe --nosyncacls

or

imapsync --syncinternaldates --subscribed --host1 sourceserver --host2 destinationserver --user1 userAcctSrc --authuser1 adminUserSrc --password1 adminPassDest --user2 useracctondest --authuser2 adminUserDest --password2 adminPassDest --ssl1 --port1 num --ssl2 --port2

If not already zimbraImapSSLServerEnabled should be set TRUE because AUTH=PLAIN requires TLS encoding, so an IMAPs or STARTTLS command on a normal IMAP connection.

Adjust the above as both accounts are on the same server.
[SOLVED] Massive migration using imapsync, don't know users passwords
migration from cyrus with encrypted password?
There's also Bug 11423 - disaster recovery through server to server sync (beta) under construction.

[parixit]

Costa,

How would I go about implementing mmorse's imapsync code inregards to your step 2?

Thanks for the both of your help!

-Parixit

[Costa-101]

Simply remove the passwords section from imap_users

domains=(
	domain1 \
	domain2 \
	domainy)

users=(
	user1@domain1 \
	user2@domain1 \
	userx@domain1 \
	user1@domain2 \
	user2@domain2 \
	userx@domain2 \
	user1@domainy \
	user2@domainy \
	userx@domainy)

and change imapsync_crontab to the following:

. imap_users #if in the same folder as imap_users else full-path to imap_users

src_srv = zimbra.server.com
dest_srv = backup.server.com

for ((i = 0 ; i < ${#users[@]} ; i++ ))
do
/usr/bin/imapsync --noauthmd5 --syncinternaldates --buffersize 65535000 --subscribe \
--host1 $src_srv --ssl1 --user1 ${users[$i]} --authuser1 adminusername --password1 adminpassword --nofastio1 --authmech1 LOGIN \
--host2 $dest_srv --ssl2 --user2 ${users[$i]} --authuser2 adminusername --password2 adminpassword --nofastio2 --authmech2 LOGIN
done

I think that is what you need, let me know

Costa

[Costa-101]

I updated the wiki to incorporate this scenario.

thanks for sharing this activity with us - your experiences will no doubt be common

I think it will help me as well

Many thanks

Costa

[parixit]

Costa thank you for your work on documenting and helping out the community!
Another quick question. When I have to bring down "zimbra.server.com" for upgrade or maintenance will I be able to use "backup.server.com" as the primary server by just changing the hostname on the server? A sort of "quck" high availability use?

[Klug]

Don't forget server to server "replication" will be available in ZCS 5.5.

[Costa-101]

When I have to bring down "zimbra.server.com" for upgrade or maintenance will I be able to use "backup.server.com" as the primary server by just changing the hostname on the server? A sort of "quck" high availability use?

I am reluctant to give a definitive solution here, and hope another more experienced member may aid you along the high-availability path.

- but -

If you just switch the mx record over about 24 hours before downtime (pointing to your backup ZCS server), you should not lose any emails - if that is your aim here.

Don't forget to change DNS records if you setup something like webmail.server.com etc..

Good luck


Costa