Zimbra 5.X delete server, add it back later?

[number9]

This is with ZCS NE 5.0.23_GA, under RHEL 5.0.

We have a multi server setup, and we are running into trouble. We are trying to bring up another mailstore, (mailstore02) but the box itself is having problems with its drive array. We would like to take if off line (out of the zimbra setup) to work on it, as if we take it down it takes down the entire zimbra suite (although no one is on it, zimbra seems to have no failover built in for multiple mbox servers, no problem).

So, if we did a zmprov ds mailstore02 this would take it out, correct?
I am assuming now that we would have to disconnect it from the network as the other zimbra servers would still see it running and try to use it?

If my second question is not true, how does one go about bringing it back on line when we fix the drive issues?

Finally, we have two MTA servers. One has had a hardware failure. Again, would the best solution (while we are working with the HW vendor) be to use zmprov ds mta01?
Again, if we did that, how do we bring it back online?
Will nginx automatically use the other MTA server that we have? As of now we had to take MTA1 out of DNS.

Thanks.

[bdial]

i'm not sure i understand what you're saying. so you've added another mailbox server, mailstore02 but it has no users on it currently? and you're saying that if you power down that box, that zimbra stops working for every user, even those on mailbox01 (i assume your existing mailbox server?)

[number9]

I am saying, we added mailstore02, we did not provision anyone on it yet, as it has some drive problems. We are working on the drives. We note that when we take the machine offline (e.g. reboot) that you can not login to the web interface (I suppose I should have said that, instead of "stops working"). For all practical purposes, it stops working as our users can not login. We talked to Zimbra about this before, but they had no answer on that issue.

So, right now I am just trying to figure out a clean way to take it out of the multiserver setup so that a) we can work on it and b) mail and the webclient still work. Then, how do we add it back in later...

[Krishopper]

If you did not provision anyone on it, and people are browsing to a web address that resolves to the server that is online, then there shouldn't be an issue.

Make sure that the URL you are browsing to when your users log into Zimbra does not resolve to the server that you are taking offline.

Also, I am assuming that you didn't move LDAP services to the new server as well - obviously if LDAP goes down, Zimbra will become unavailable.

[number9]

We have the web address setup to point to the first mailstore. We do not have LDAP on this box. Still, if we take it off line it causes massive problems with getting to the webclient.
I have read before that it should not be an issue, but it is. Can not seem to figure out why it causes problems.

Again, I am wondering if anyone has taken one off line with the aforementioned zmprov command. I would like to know that doing this will not take down email.

Thanks.

[Hivos]

I've had to take down a (new, unpopulated) server from our deployment with "zmprov ds server.example.com" this week. We did not experience any problems with our primary server after (nor before by the way). After having solved our problem (CA in ldap != CA in /opt/zimbra/conf/ca) I reinstalled the secondary server.

If you delete a server, which does not contain any mailboxes, is not your master-ldap, not your proxy, not your logger etc., I don't see how you could run into any problems. But run a full backup just in case ;-)

P.S. When you install the logger package on a node, all your servers are configured to log to the new node.