Network version disaster recovery steps.

[dhallweb]

I have gone through the documentation and somehow I am missing something. I am testing a building level disaster recovery, this test involves: 1ea brand new hardware loaded with RHEL4, 1 backup tape containing the last full backup run by zmbackup -f -a all -t /some/path, and the tar ball of the Zimbra I am currently running zcs-NETWORK-3.0.1_GA_160.RHEL4.tgz.
I am going live soon and need to get this process documented before I do, I have tried it a few times and gotten partial results but not a full operational server. Does somebody have the steps documented any where? Using the backup documentation is leaving me a little confused as to how to install Zimbra in this scenario in relation to starting Zimbra or not, restoring the LDAP and so on. I am kind of running out of time to figure this out and get all the other things done to switch over to the new server.

[marcmac]

What's going wrong? Things won't start, data missing, ???

Couple of things to check:

In addition to /opt/zimbra, make sure you're restoring changes to:
/etc/sudoers
/etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, /etc/group
/etc/ld.so.conf
/etc/ld.so.conf.d/zimbra
/etc/logrotate.d/zimbra
/etc/init.d/zimbra plus any symlinks needed in /etc/rc*.d

Verify that the zimbra, postfix and postdrop users/groups have the same IDs on the source and destination boxes.

Try running zmfixperms after the untar (could take a long time)

Originally Posted by dhallweb

I have gone through the documentation and somehow I am missing something. I am testing a building level disaster recovery, this test involves: 1ea brand new hardware loaded with RHEL4, 1 backup tape containing the last full backup run by zmbackup -f -a all -t /some/path, and the tar ball of the Zimbra I am currently running zcs-NETWORK-3.0.1_GA_160.RHEL4.tgz.
I am going live soon and need to get this process documented before I do, I have tried it a few times and gotten partial results but not a full operational server. Does somebody have the steps documented any where? Using the backup documentation is leaving me a little confused as to how to install Zimbra in this scenario in relation to starting Zimbra or not, restoring the LDAP and so on. I am kind of running out of time to figure this out and get all the other things done to switch over to the new server.

[KevinH]

On the new server you'll want to install the same version of zimbra with the same domain(s). Then use the restore command to re-add the data and the accounts.

[dhallweb]

Originally Posted by marcmac

What's going wrong? Things won't start, data missing, ???

I am gettting different results from different ways I have tried this restore based on the documentation. The documentation seems to jump around a bit, this is probably a function of my lack of understanding of how Zimbra works. This is an emergency installation so I am just rying to get things going the best I can and plan on learning more later, hence my hopes to find a step by step like: install Zimbra, do A, then B then C. The information you have provided is helpful I will log it in my work order system for the future use.

[dhallweb]

Originally Posted by KevinH

On the new server you'll want to install the same version of zimbra with the same domain(s). Then use the restore command to re-add the data and the accounts.

So my working server is called mail.domain.com, I install Zimbra on a new server as mail.domain.com and get it operational. Then I run:
zmrestore -a all -t /pathto/backupdirectoryfrommail.domain.com

Correct?

[KevinH]

Originally Posted by dhallweb

So my working server is called mail.domain.com, I install Zimbra on a new server as mail.domain.com and get it operational. Then I run:
zmrestore -a all -t /pathto/backupdirectoryfrommail.domain.com

Correct?

I think you want:

zmrestore -ca -a all -t /pathto/backupdirectoryfrommail.domain.com

The -ca will trigger the account creation as well.

[bobby]

actually i think it provisions the account no matter what, so you can't restore into an existing account. the -ca option uses the --prefix to create the accounts with a slightly different name.