Migrating Zimbra Open Source Edition.

[NathanL]

Recently, i setup a zimbra OSE for my own e-mail hosting. In a Xen vm. It wasnt working well, so i decided to move it to metal.

The problem was the lack of backup ability in OSE. It took me some time, but I've figured out a relatively clean way to migrate from one zimbra install to another. It involves using your standard tools to backup ldap, mysql, and the message store, and then moving it over to the target server, cleaning it up, and importing it.

Ive seen a number of threads on these forums regarding this topic. I'd tried a number of the procedures mentioned, none of which worked out for me. I think it was because of how dis-similar the two servers were. Hostname, address, physical location, vm vs. metal.

I've written-up the whole procedure on my blog. Have a look, suggest any tweaks that make sense.

I hope this helps out another admin looking to do a similar move. For that matter, anyone attempting to backup Zimbra OSE.

[raj]

Good to see your stuff finally worked..but you took the long road
i am sure you learned quite a bit during this process

just wanted to point out that its not that hard to move zimbra if done right its much simpler than "the hard way" you did it

Hostname, address, physical location, vm vs. metal.

1) Hostname Change
ZmSetServerName - Zimbra :: Wiki

2) IP Address: not hardcoded in zimbra so should not have affected the migration..other than you have to update the public DNS to point to new ones once done

3) physical location: don't see this as a problem as you still had to copy your data store over which is generally the major chunk of file transfer

4) vm vs metal: no difference at all to zimbra if OS and Zimbra version was same..

So to move OSS Zimbra Moving ZCS to Another Server » Zimbra :: Blog is still the best and easiest way

Raj

[NathanL]

Ha! Looks like zmsetservername would have been my fix.

Oh well, i manage zimbra NE for a college, so it's nice to get a feel for its underbelly anyway.


All in all, this method actually turned out to be faster than getting the entire zimbra home dir copied over. i supposed an intelligent rsync would have sped that up a bit, copying only that which was different from source to target. Location was a sticking point simply because it meant i couldnt copy my data over a lan, or some sort of removable media. I had to keep it as small as possible because i was transferring it over the internet. The smaller the files I had to move, the shorter my downtime was.

Besides, i'm a linux admin, i like to do things the hard way. What would i have learned if i just copied it over, and zimbra did the rest for me?


Thanks!

[raj]

i was wondering ..did your indexes work ?
as i dont see you copied your indexes i.e: /opt/zimbra/index folder
which also is kind of db i dont know if simple file copy will copy them as Lucene index engine may be locking the files while zimbra services are running

Raj

[NathanL]

Originally Posted by raj

i was wondering ..did your indexes work ?
as i dont see you copied your indexes i.e: /opt/zimbra/index folder
which also is kind of db i dont know if simple file copy will copy them as Lucene index engine may be locking the files while zimbra services are running

Raj

That's a good question...

I havent noticed any issues.. Can you recommend a method to actively test this?

[raj]

search using web interface for your email content
either you will see error or it will show no results as your old mail's index is not there..

Raj

[NathanL]

Originally Posted by raj

search using web interface for your email content
either you will see error or it will show no results as your old mail's index is not there..

Raj

You're right.

Search isnt working.

I took a simple tar.gz of my ~zimbra/index dir, and placed it on my target server. All is well.

[raj]

cool..

did you update your blog

raj

[NathanL]

Originally Posted by raj

cool..

did you update your blog

raj

Indeed i did.

[NathanL]

Well, seems i've spoken too soon. I tried to use my "Documents" tab in the web interface tonight, and its not working.

The tool bar shows, but the entire content area is empty. I cant find any logs which pertain to this feature.

Any suggestions?