Lost a user account, stuck in a loop

[niks1101]

Hi all,

I did a search before posting but couldn't see anything on this subject. Very new to Zimbra so please be gentle with me.

I have a user who's name just changed from

sarah.watson (with an alias of emma@)

to

sarah.speed (with an alias of emma@ & emma.watson@)

Problem is I was in the middle of changing the name when the admin caused an error (sorry I can't remember what).

When I went back to accounts her account is gone!

- I can't create it again I get this error:

"A distribution list, an alias, a resource or an account with the specified name already exists. Please choose another name."

- I can't email it as zimbra bounces it

- I can't open aliases on the admin I get this error:

Server error encountered Message: system failure: target 2418ecdb-8f5a-41a1-8356-76a149f125fd of alias emma.watson@XXXX.co.uk not found (zimbraId=2418ecdb-8f5a-41a1-8356-76a149f125fd) Error code: service.FAILURE Method: SearchDirectoryRequest Details:soap:Receiver


HELP!!

How do I restore emma.watson? is her account gone for good?

please help, thanks so much!

niki

[niks1101]

In addition to the above I've just tried this from the command line: any idea how to get out of this loop? While preferably _not_ deleting the users account & mail?

zimbra@mail:~$ zmprov sp emma.watson@XXXX.co.uk test123
ERROR: account.NO_SUCH_ACCOUNT (no such account: emma.watson@XXXX.co.uk)

zimbra@mail:~$ zmprov ca emma.watson@XXXX.co.uk test123
ERROR: account.ACCOUNT_EXISTS (email address already exists: emma.watson@XXXX.co.uk, at DN: uid=emma.watson,ou=people,dc=XXXX,dc=co,dc=uk)

zimbra@mail:~$

any help? new system and somebody's mail is properly down * whimper *

[phoenix]

What happens if you try the following:

zmprov ra 2418ecdb-8f5a-41a1-8356-76a149f125fd sarah.speed@yourdomain.com

Does the account reappear with the correct (new) login details?

If not, what does this show:

zmprov ga 2418ecdb-8f5a-41a1-8356-76a149f125fd

[niks1101]

Thank you for your help, neither of those two commands helped in the end, they both returned account doesn't exist messages.

In the end I have

1, created a new account
2, added two aliases, including the one that was breaking the alias section

This seems to have cleared it up, but it did manage to *delete* an entire email account by simply me just trying to rename it. Thankfully, the new system had only been live two days so the amount of mail lost is manageable, but what if this was to happen in a year or something, I'm going to be very careful in the future.

One final question:

What is the correct way to rename an email account when somebody gets married?

Example:

Was: janet.sadler@ - with an existing alias of janet@
Now: janet.example - with aliases of janet@ & janet.sadler@

Any walkthrough tips much appreciated

regards

Niki

[uxbod]

Please update your profile with the output from

su - zimbra
zmcontrol -v

so we can see which version of ZCS you are running

[niks1101]

Done, thanks for the tip

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by niks1101

What is the correct way to rename an email account when somebody gets married?

Example:

Was: janet.sadler@ - with an existing alias of janet@
Now: janet.example - with aliases of janet@ & janet.sadler@

Any walkthrough tips much appreciated

You can either rename an account via the Admin UI or via the command line, as you were trying to do - there should be no problems doing that. Without knowing what "...the admin caused an error" problem was it's impossible to say what caused your initial problem. All I can suggest is that your create a test account and try the rename process via the command line and via the Admin UI - make sure your admin isn't in work that day.

[niks1101]

Hi all,

I think it could be a bug, or just a usecase that screws with zimbra.

I reproduced the exact same thing by following these steps

1, Created an account called test.test@domain
2 Added alias test@domain (don't know if this is needed)
3, logged in as test.test sent and received one email (again don't know if this is needed)
4, edited test.test in administrator, changed to text.example - *didn't save*, flipped to the alias tab and clicked add and added alias test.test@
5, clicked save

Error in administrator

Failed to add Aliases. Message: invalid request: LDAP schema violation: [LDAP: error code 65 - attribute 'zimbraMailAlias' not allowed] Error code: service.INVALID_REQUEST Method: AddAccountAliasRequest Details:soap:Sender

6, clicked close
7, clicked don't save to the close dialog
8, you see the account still in the accounts list, but if you navigate away and come back test.test is _gone_
9, click on Aliases tab and you get this error (if you flip to the page where the test.test alias would be.)

Server error encountered Message: system failure: target d4b71341-b485-41fe-a60f-1c16f5abf731 of alias test.test@domain.com not found (zimbraId=d4b71341-b485-41fe-a60f-1c16f5abf731) Error code: service.FAILURE Method: SearchDirectoryRequest Details:soap:Receiver



So I can reproduce a nasty error every time by effectively trying to create an alias which is an exact match of the current account name (account: test.test@ alias test.test@domain). If I save the new account name before adding the alias everything works fine.

Hope this helps, it's is a bit late for me but if you know a way of retrieving the account now in purgatory then I would be interested in finding out.

It might also be worth reporting this so it can be fixed or managed in a future release?

[mmorse]

Originally Posted by niks1101

8, you see the account still in the accounts list, but if you navigate away and come back test.test is _gone_

So I can reproduce a nasty error every time by effectively trying to create an alias which is an exact match of the current account name (account: test.test@ alias test.test@domain). If I save the new account name before adding the alias everything works fine.

'5.0.12_GA_2789.UBUNTU8 FOSS' you should upgrade to 5.0.13 to avoid the severe bug where there is no check if a name is already in use, and if alias action is executed with an active account name the existing user is essentially deleted: 5.0.13 Released/5.0.12 Bug

Therefore the correct result after clicking save (step 5) is: "Cannot add alias: Account test.test@domain.com already exists", it will change the account name to test.example, then you can go back and add test.test as an alias.

[niks1101]

thanks to eveybody for the help with this problem, I'll now try to work out how to upgrade Zimbra to the latest version on a live server.

Just to show how close this was check my ls -l on the zimba download I installed:

techsupport 348071257 2009-02-06 00:02 zcs-5.0.12_GA_2789.UBUNTU8.20090126112326.tgz


if only I had waited a few hours I would have downloaded 5.0.13!

thanks again