Quick Upgrade / Migration question

[MGSteve]

Hi, I'm currently running an old version of Zimbra (Release 5.0.10_GA_2638.RHEL5_20081003052615 CentOS5), I want to upgrade to a new version and move it onto a new server as I don't like the way the hosting company has partitioned the server up, not to mention I have a sneaking suspicion the server's been hacked, seeing as for some reason I have a 185MB email which effectively locked up the email server as I mysteriously now have no disk space left.

So, how easy is it to migrate a zimbra setup from one server to another and hows best to perform the upgrade?

If someone can point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it.

[MGSteve]

Right, scratch the hacking, just realised I'd managed to mail bomb myself thanks to an error on one of the servers firing off an email tens even hundreds of times a minute all day.

idiot. They'd been flagged as spam and thus filled up the disk in the quarantine folders.

I'm clearing them as I type, but I still really need to upgrade the server, so any advice would be kindly accepted.

[phoenix]

I'd suggest you upgrade to the current release before you do the migration (make sure you take a full backup of /top/zimbra first) and when you've done that you can take your pick of the migration instructions: site:zimbra.com "new server" - Yahoo! Search Results

[MGSteve]

Ok, next question then, how easy is it to upgrade & how reliable is the upgrader? Last thing I want is to run the upgrade and find it breaks and leaves me with a broken server....

[phoenix]

Ok, next question then, how easy is it to upgrade & how reliable is the upgrader? Last thing I want is to run the upgrade and find it breaks and leaves me with a broken server....

As usual the answer is, it depends. If your system is correctly configured, has no database errors, DNS & hosts file is correct then the upgrade should be fairly painless but there are some problems that crop up for specific installations. You won't know until you run it hence the advice to backup your system first. Upgrading is easy, it's just a case of running the usual './install.sh' script.

If you're concerned then have a search through the forums for any upgrade problems and see if they apply to your installation. You should also make yourself familiar with the procedure for disaster recovery.