Mail address username issue for internal mails on Zimbra server

[sparky]

Hi,

I'm using Zimbra version: zcs-5.0.16_GA_2921.RHEL5.20090429052155

I know it's very old but the system it's on is very old and a home server so am not that inclined at the moment to upgrade YET!!! without newer resources which are in the pipeline :-)


My issue is that if I send an email from one account on my Zimbra server to another account on my Zimbra server the From: address name on the mail client is shown as the recipient name.


In a nutshell:


User A: John Doe <sender>
User B: Alice Springs <recipient>


John Doe sends email to Alice Springs from client (Alpine or Thunderbird)
Alice Springs recieves email from John Doe email address but name as Alice Springs


This I can't work out..........


I have setup both email addresses properly and aliased them accordingly so as of this example:


Address A: John.Doe@haven.domain.com
Address B: Alice.Springs@haven.domain.com


With aliases going to:

John.Doe@domain.com
Alice.Springs@domain.com


Also the names of each individual have been put in to the correlating accounts.


I don't understand why this is happening!!


That From: gets shown as Alice Springs while it should be John Doe???


What have I messed up in the process and how can I fix this???


P.s. sorry for going the long way around explaining as it's quite difficult to articulate a summary of the situation as confusion is easy.


Regards,


Kaya

[jdeproost]

Hello Kaya,

That is strange indeed.
But can I ask why you would have a separate sub-domain for internal e-mail?
When sending the e-mail from Zimbra the internal e-mails are delivered directly unless you use an "external" SMTP.
This could make your live more easy unless I'm missing out on something.

Kind regards,
Johnny

[sparky]

Hello Kaya,

That is strange indeed.
But can I ask why you would have a separate sub-domain for internal e-mail?
When sending the e-mail from Zimbra the internal e-mails are delivered directly unless you use an "external" SMTP.
This could make your live more easy unless I'm missing out on something.

Kind regards,
Johnny

I haven't tested the 'domain' as such.

I mean my reasons for seperation is that I run a lot of OpenSource projects from my home network and it's basically just a way that I can keep tabs off everything so that my family can use the internal mail server too and not be tied to any ISP. Makes things easier for backup and recovery purposes!!


My families alias is the ISP email domain anyway so they don't have really have any interaction at all with the OpenSource and project domains but still it is an odd issue.....


I guess I'll have to look at the mail source headers and see why things are happening from there; even though the names both within Zimbra are fine and checkout for each username and also the clients (currently Alpine and Thunderbird) are also fine.


Perhaps the maillog file will need to be inspected too......


I have noticed some other issues though as I run 2 domains from the same mail server and I can't login to either using the same username but changing the URL on top.


Eg. Jon doe : jondoe@domain1.com : jondoe@domain2.com

if one types in mail.domain1.com or mail.domain2.com and enters jondoe in as user, jondoe gets transferred to only domain1.com.


That's also odd???


I got round that one by logging in as jondoe@domain(1 or 2).com in the username field....


Strange...............

[phoenix]

I'm using Zimbra version: zcs-5.0.16_GA_2921.RHEL5.20090429052155

That's currently an EndOfLife version of Zimbra and no longer supported, you should upgrade to the most recent release.

My issue is that if I send an email from one account on my Zimbra server to another account on my Zimbra server the From: address name on the mail client is shown as the recipient name.

Not on my server it doesn't, sending an email from one addres to another shows the correct From address.

I have setup both email addresses properly and aliased them accordingly so as of this example:

Address A: John.Doe@haven.domain.com
Address B: Alice.Springs@haven.domain.com

With aliases going to:

John.Doe@domain.com
Alice.Springs@domain.com

You should have configured the domain correctly when Zimbra was installed or you could rename the domain to be in the correct format i.e. domain.com rather than haven.domain.com and that would save you the problem of managing account aliases.

You're also going to need to review the log files to see what happened to a specific mail, where it was delivered and which account sent it.

[sparky]

Thanks Bill for the response!


I figured it out essentially


Actually the domain was configured as a sub domain since I was trying to get around a DNS'ing issue of having domain.com going to my www server and thought that if I created a sub domain things would be easier.......

At the beginning all was fine but then I realized (I was still learning DNS at the time) that if I wanted mail sent to the proper domain things would have to be done properly.


Anyhow, it turns out while checking the email source that everything is ok so it seems like a bug with Thunderbird in Fedora 15 x64.... Fedora F16 x64 T'bird works fine and additionally Alpine too.
--so sorted basically.


Now quick question.


When I finally do come to upgrade, needs resources on my behalf as current mail server is PIV with 1.5GB RAM;

if I do a mailbox dump and then import those into the new machine... as long as the accounts are the same, ie. same username etc....


do the hostname + FQDN need to be the same??


As in if I name the system: haven.domain.com in the /etc/hosts file, but point the DNS to domain.com eliminating the need for aliases so that if I was desperate for aliases I could just add the haven.domain.com alias.



Regards,


Kaya

[phoenix]

I'm assuming that you're moving to a 64bit server (you should be as 32bit Zimbra is deprecated), if that's the case you'll need to follow this guide: Network Edition: Moving from 32-bit to 64-bit Server - Zimbra :: Wiki

It's fairly straightforward if you follow it correctly (obviously omit any NE steps), you shouldn't have any problems with that. There is also the ZeXtras Migration Tool that will do the job as well, take your pick.

[sparky]

Hi Bill,

it seems a long time ago I posted about moving mailboxes as at the time it seemed easier then the migration procedure and you where the person responding :-)

Actually the post is located here:

Moving mailboxes from one server to another?

We eventually worked out that doing this:

/opt/zimbra/bin/zmmailbox -z -m user@domain.com getRestURL “//?fmt=tgz” > /tmp/account.tgz

Would work out better in my case so I'm not sure if this: Network Edition: Moving from 32-bit to 64-bit Server - Zimbra :: Wiki

is still applicable??


It talks about LDAP but I don't see anything about Mailboxes anywhere???


i do however see it discussed here:

» Zimbra :: Blog

[phoenix]

Following the 32bit to 64bit guide will move all the mailboxes and server settings from one machine to the other.

[sparky]

Thanks so much Bill