Using the new apache convertd?

[Rich Graves]

ZCS 5.0.7 introduced a beta multiprocess convertd. But we haven't heard much about it since then. Is that the expected/recommended direction for the future or not?

Bug #2161 is still marked private. Several recent convertd threads in the forums are unsolved.

I'm going to be upgrading from 5.0.8 to 5.0.10 a couple weekends hence. We have had a bunch of kvoop storms in the past. I've been given a wide variety of specific suggestions for customizing the old convertd (skipping specific attachment types, skipping rasterization of vector graphics entirely, etc). I've sometimes been told that I should consider zimbra-convertd v2, but never as a strong recommendation.

Can anyone who has tried zimbra-convertd in a production environment give me a testimonial either way?

[dustys]

We are facing the same choice as we approach another upgrade. About 2 mos. ago, we had kvoop taking off on us over a few days, so we disabled attachment indexing and HTML rendering of attachments to keep the system running. Any input from someone who has used the new convertd, would be appreciated!

Dustin

[Rich Graves]

I switched to the new convertd and will report back on our experiences. It definitely "works" but as you know the problems with convertd v1 were intermittent.

Still disappointed in the lack of clarity from Zimbra.

One thing to note: /opt/zimbra/convertd/bin/upgrade_v2 shuts down mailboxd immediately, without asking for confirmation first.

[Rich Graves]

After about a week, I'm going to call it a success. Seems more stable... though that could be the 5.0.8-5.0.10 upgrade, too.

Biggest vulnerability is that Zimbra doesn't appear to ship anything to monitor the convertd-httpd, which listens on port 7047 and logs to /opt/zimbra/log/convertd.log.`date +%Y-%m-%d`

Periodically running /opt/zimbra/bin/zmconvertctl (status|stop|start) is one approach. Eventual RFE: Bug 28047 – Need for a convertd-mon process