Yet Another Migrate/Restore Scenario Question

[airbish]

We have searched everywhere and haven't found a procedure that seems to cover (or work for) this scenario.

We are virtualizing our network edition installation (that we have been running for 4 years). All the vsphere stuff is fine. We just need to figure out how to get our existing domain and data moved over to the new mail server.

Our existing config is a single server installation. We are converting to a multi-server installation with 2 vms (1 with all services inside the firewall, and 1 with MTA and Zimbra Proxy in the DMZ). All of that is up and running properly with test domains and test mail accounts. Looks great.

Now ALL we want to do is move the production domain to the new server. We can't seem to find a procedure that applies (or that we can get to work) for this scenario. All the 'docs' we can find either talks about reinstalling the 'new' zimbra server and/or completely wiping all the LDAP etc... It's seems to all be talking about a DR scenario where we want/need to recreate the box. We don't want to do that...we just want to move the existing domain and data to the new server configuration that is running fine. (btw...the host names are changing completely...as are the ssl certs.)

Sorry if we've overlooked a document that explains this, but any guidance or links would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[kbigger]

We virtualized a 2 HW server system - turned it into a 10 VM system ultimately. We build the VM mailstores, added them to the existing system, moved the accounts from the HW to the VM stores, then deleted the HW stores when were were done. This was for approximately 12k users. No service interruption except for the few minutes the user's mailbox was in maintenance mode.

[airbish]

Thanks but that's still not exactly what we want to do... We are not adding these new servers to the existing LDAP. This is a completely separate, new multi-server system.

We are not trying to do a DR (and bring up the new server exactly like the old). We are not adding a new server to an existing LDAP with the intent of doing maintenance-mode mbs-to-mbs moves. We are also not migrating 32-bit to 64-bit (we have always been 64-bit..I only mention that because Zimbra support just sent us that doc (which also assumes you are re-creating the new server in exactly the same configuration (IPs, Hostnames, etc.). Our old server lived on a public IP...part of the whole point of this exercise is the get the LDAP and Mailbox server behind the firewall (and leave a proxy/mta out there). We cannot have the hostnames and IPs on this new box match the old one.

We just want to take the full backup of our old domain (and accounts/data, obviously) on the old system and restore it to the new system. That's it. And we are completely fine dong it offline. How complicated should that possibly be?

We considered adding the new server to the existing ldap and then doing the mailbox moves...but we can't figure out out how to then make the new server the master LDAP (and de-commission the old physical LDAP/Mailbox server). If that's the right way to do this migration, I'd love a pointer to some docs (that are actually up to date and directed at what we are trying to do).

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

[kbigger]

Not saying there's right or wrong way, we chose incremental buildout to stay operational which negated use of some of the zimbra procedures due to the requirement to name servers the same. As for the LDAP, we added a virtual replica, promoted it to master, shut down the HW master, the added a virtual replica. That's a pretty well documented and went well.

[airbish]

Ok...we'll have to look at that. The only pieces we have seen on Promoting an LDAP Replica to Master included 'don't do this if you don't have a good working knowledge of LDAP'. Based upon the the issues we've run into with Zimbra/LDAP that make that seem like something we wanted to avoid.

I anyone has a nice definitive doc on that process, that would be great.

Thanks again.

[airbish]

Ok...we shut down the proxy and reinstalled zimbra on the new mail server, pointing ldap at the existing master (and ensuring ALL ldap passwords match ldap passwords on the LDAP master (original mail server). (we installed pretty much everything (MBS, MTA, LDAP, PROXY, etc.)

It appears to have joined to the domain...and LDAP replication appears to be working...zmprov gac and zmprov -l gaa show the domain and all accounts on the new mail server.

But we are not able to use the migrate mailbox tools. when trying to migrate a single test user mailbox, both the gui and cli error out.

command and error are below.

(run as zimbra on the old mail server (master ldap)):

zmmailboxmove -a userxyz@domain.com -t newmailserver.domain.loc

Error occurred: system failure: Failed to export mailbox from source server oldmailserver.domain.com

(obviously account/server/domain names have been edited for public posting)

I have done zmsshkeygen and zmupdateauthkeys on all systems (with no errors)

Any ideas anyone?

[airbish]

Possible DNS issue....checking.

[airbish]

DNS resolves fine...can telnet to all the ports in both directions. No idea what the issue is.

Unbelievable that this is this difficult.

[airbish]

the only thing I can think of is that the old server was zimbra.companyname.com (and sat on a public IP).

The new internal mailserver is sitting on our internal domain at servername.prod.companyname.loc

They can all talk fine..

[inigoml]

How about your experience?

We are planning the same move, virtualizing our Zimbra server.

What problems did you find? Any special tip to deal with?

Thanks in advance.