Certs & ActiveSync

[bearfeeder]

Howdy... I'm trying to get Zimbra running correctly and am having 2 issues.

The first issue is that I am unable to install an SSL certificate. I used the admin console to create a CSR, I bought a RapidSSL cert. When I try to upload the cert from RapidSSL and the RapidSSL root cert, I get an IO error.

I am also trying to get the Exchange ActiveSync stuff working and have followed the online instructions, but I'm unable to get my iPad to use the Exchange protocols.

Can someone please help me with these issues.

Thanks,

David

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by bearfeeder

The first issue is that I am unable to install an SSL certificate. I used the admin console to create a CSR, I bought a RapidSSL cert. When I try to upload the cert from RapidSSL and the RapidSSL root cert, I get an IO error.

Did you try any of the solutions in the forums and/or wiki for installing RapidSSL certificates?

Originally Posted by bearfeeder

I am also trying to get the Exchange ActiveSync stuff working and have followed the online instructions, but I'm unable to get my iPad to use the Exchange protocols.

What errors do you see in the log files and what happens on the client when you try and connect?

Originally Posted by bearfeeder

Can someone please help me with these issues.

Not really, an 'it doesn't work' post isn't giving much information with which to help you diagnose the problem. You need to provide more information from the log files and a better description (including steps to reproduce) of the problem.

[bearfeeder]

Originally Posted by phoenix

Did you try any of the solutions in the forums and/or wiki for installing RapidSSL certificates?

Why yes, yes I did. I've spent well over 3 days trying to chase the cert issue down over the last 2 years. It turns out that the cert management in Zimbra 6 was pretty broken. And more recently, RapidSSL moved from a single root to a chained cert, but that was not known to the vendor who sold me the the cert and most of the wiki articles related to certs on Zimbra where not on point. I found out about the chained certs at 10pm last night and found the cert chain and made it work.

Originally Posted by phoenix

What errors do you see in the log files and what happens on the client when you try and connect?

None. There is no connection attempt logged by Zimbra when I'm setting up the exchange client from my iOS device (I've tried both an iPhone and an iPad... both running iOS 5).

Originally Posted by phoenix

Not really, an 'it doesn't work' post isn't giving much information with which to help you diagnose the problem. You need to provide more information from the log files and a better description (including steps to reproduce) of the problem.

So, I run a community and I am very sensitive to the generic "it doesn't work" kind of posts. For example: Expected Behavior in the Lift community - Lift

With that being said, I am a potential customer of Zimbra (as opposed to the Lift community where there's no structured financial mechanism for helping people... we are all volunteers). I tried to replace my nearly decade old Kerio mail server with a Zimbra mail server almost two years ago and Zimbra's sales team was wholly unresponsive. My basic deal with "solve these two problems (the cert issue and creating domain aliases) and I'll buy licenses from you." That was met with silence.

So, I'm back, evaluating Zimbra (Kerio has weak anti-spam features and the file-system based mailbox storage is underperformant and Kerio's search is weak.) I gravitate to Zimbra because I knew Scott Dietzen back in the day and I tend to go with companies founded by people I know. Further, Zimbra has excellent search and reasonable anti-spam capabilities (anti-spam is important to me because over the last 200 days, I got more than 5M pieces of spam... why, because one of my email addresses will be 20 years old in December.) However, comparing Zimbra's administration to Kerio's... well... Zimbra's administrative stuff is a huge messy mixed bag where Kerio's admin stuff is simple, sane, and when I moved from sendmail to Kerio, it took about a day.

I am all about doing research and reading manuals and piecing through things. But, Zimbra's documentation is worse than weak. The wiki is very weedy and needs a good gardening. The forums are a mixed bag.

So, I'm sitting here with a check in my hand. If Zimbra can suit my needs, there's probably $10K+ that's going to change hands over my tenure as a Zimbra customer (no, it's not a big number, but I would hope it'd actually lead to Zimbra wanting to help me succeed.)

So, in terms of the Exchange stuff... I followed the instructions Zimbra Mobile Installation and Setup for iPhone - Zimbra :: Wiki and got nothing in my logs. Now maybe I'm an idiot, but I suspect there's something obvious that I'm missing (like opening a particular port or something like that) that folks in this forum might be helpful about.

[bearfeeder]

After talking to a sales engineer, the answer became obvious: I had to explicitly enable ZimbraSync for each account. The normal login stuff was never being hit because the account was not enabled for Sync so when the mobile client hit it, the mobile client got no farther than the sync module.

For those searching for an answer, here's the post that led me to the answer:
How do i enable ZimbraSync per user?

In terms of phoenix's attitude-laden post, if you want logs, then please point people to the RIGHT logs rather than saying "post logs." I've got nearly 10GB of Zimbra split across 20 files. I would have been happy to find the right logs and the right log entries if I had been given a hint.

So, yeah, Zimbra's product earned my business. In terms of the amount of junk I had to go through to get the answers, I'm not a happy camper. In terms of Phoenix's approach... I'm glad I won't have to deal with these forums anymore.