Restoring old mailboxes?

[RobLarose]

I've seen mentioned here before that changes in the schema from version to version make restoring old backups impossible.

What, then, is the recommended method for restoring old mail? The scenario that immediately leaps to mind is a legal/policy requirement to keep e-mail archives. I can back up my mailboxes and keep them forever on tape, but once Zimbra's been upgraded, there's no way to restore those mailboxes?

Is there an obvious solution that I'm missing?

[mmorse]

In a pinch you could still dig though them to find some content.
However, you could keep the packages for every version stored with your backups in case you need to run an old version. (Though NE versions are also available online for a while, and OS versions are archived on sourceforge.)

For NE: There's also an add-on for Archiving & Discovery w/ CrossMailbox search that was designed to meet compliance needs.
/blog/archives/2007/07/zimbra_archiving_discovery_has_launched.html

For OS: search always_bcc in the forums

I see you had the NE trial (on 9-10-07 so your still within the 60 days) you can contact sales if you wish to get a NE trial that has ZAD enabled.
The ZAD Admin UI module: files.zimbra.com/downloads/4.5.6_GA/zimbra-cms-4.5.6_GA_1024.tgz (The core archiving component is bundled in with ZCS NE and is enabled via the command line.)
(I think 4.5.7 trials might have the file & license already-I haven't needed to run a trial in a long time...)

You could add your current version information/operating system to your profile:
a) it makes a difference some times on what commands we give or options that you can take
b) so we don't have to ask all the time in the future (sometimes it's a pain to dig through old posts)

via the command line:

su zimbra
zmcontrol -v

or in the main search bar of the web-client enter:

$set:get version

http://www.zimbra.com/forums/profile.php?do=editprofile > about halfway down the page 'additional information' > zimbra version blank

[RobLarose]

Hi (again) Mike!

Is there full documentation of the ZAD feature somewhere? I dont' see it in the admin guide and the best I'm seeing specifically about it is a whitepaper.

From what I gather, you can pre-determine that all inbound mail (and outbound?) for particular addresses is forked to a single "discovery" mailbox? Does this mean that mail has to sit live in the discovery mailbox forever? So I wind up with an ever-growing "discovery" mailbox using disk space many times the size of my live mailbox store? Sound expensive... and if that mailbox gets corrupted, where am I left?

My concern is that I may want to completely delete a user, but will have reason in the future to want to bring back the mailbox intact from a particular date. Is there no equiv. to the PST file? A CSV or some other format that could be archived, removed, and restored in the future?

I'll add my version info to my profile. 4.5.6 I think. What's new in 4.5.7? I didn't see a release note about it.

[mmorse]

Originally Posted by RobLarose

From what I gather, you can pre-determine that all inbound mail (and outbound?) for particular addresses is forked to a single "discovery" mailbox? Does this mean that mail has to sit live in the discovery mailbox forever? So I wind up with an ever-growing "discovery" mailbox using disk space many times the size of my live mailbox store? Sound expensive... and if that mailbox gets corrupted, where am I left?

Well they are going to have to be somewhere, also remember you can use HSM to offload old messages to cheaper disks. There's a RFE in for choosing a separate location for archive mailboxes within each mailstore that's not counted in backups so your not wasting space (but you could also send them to another zimbra or smtp mailserver all together).

Originally Posted by RobLarose

My concern is that I may want to completely delete a user, but will have reason in the future to want to bring back the mailbox intact from a particular date. Is there no equiv. to the PST file? A CSV or some other format that could be archived, removed, and restored in the future?

How about .zip?

Though it's not exactly an easy way to search through them later (besides importing them into a mail client or using your operating system's search).
This does not delete them from your zimbra account-it's just exporting the messages in a zip file.
Login first (auth as the user or change their pass as their leaving anyway)
Browse to: http://server.domain.com/user/~/inbox.zip (or any other folder name at the end)

Notes:
-Be sure to rename items.zip to something descriptive so you know what it is! (subfolders will show up inside it as well if your searching across multiple folders)
-You can replace accountnames with ~
-'user' & 'home', as well as 'service' & 'zimbra' are mostly interchangeable/often not needed/you can construct in a variety of ways. ie:

/user/~
/home/accountname
/zimbra/user/~/
/zimbra/home/~/
/zimbra/user/accountnamehere/
/zimbra/home/accountnameehere/
/service/home/~

For instance, you could:
-Do an advanced search in the web-client first, and move them to a folder or tag them, then grab a zip of all items with that tag or in that folder.
-Without going back into the web-client; search across all folders for things like:

• Emails sent before a certain date:http://server.domain.com/zimbra/user/accountname/?fmt=zip&query="before:7/1/2007"
• Email's from an address:http://server.domain.com/home/~/?fmt=zip&query="from:user@domain.com"
• A certain tag:http://server.domain.com/service/home/~/?fmt=zip&query=tag:"Zimbra"

UPDATE: zimlet in the works: http://www.zimbra.com/forums/adminis...end-users.html

Originally Posted by RobLarose

I'll add my version info to my profile. 4.5.6 I think. What's new in 4.5.7? I didn't see a release note about it.

http://www.zimbra.com/pdf/Zimbra NE Release Notes.pdf
You can also track RFEs/bugs via the Zimbra Product Portal

[RobLarose]

Originally Posted by mmorse

How about .zip?

This functionality is separate from ZAD, then? Is the zipped mailbox restorable in any way? i.e., if I pull out a ZIP and then archive it to tape, what can I do with it 5 years later, except text-search the files? Is it subject to the same schema unrestorability problem?

[mmorse]

yes-with some work (see style 3 below)

Alright, you got a bunch of different methods here...let me give you a list of all the options/possibilities at once.
They're separated into styles with some point values based on the functionality/ease of a particular action.

Style 1: Compliance 3 - Search 3 - Restore 1 = 7pts. in favor
Automatic forking can better be equated with 'easily search-able compliance archives'.
-ZAD to the same zcs server, another zcs server, (either way you can make use of HSM) or another simple mail server tied to some storage
-always_bcc in postifx to some other account/mailserver (it's the OS concept of zad; but with a lot more organizational work needed on your end setting up filters to sort the user's mail into folders, etc /forums/administrators/8659-enhancement-hacks-power-filters.html)
-you can technically use these as backups in a pinch, but only for messages

Style 2: Compliance 2 - Search 1 - Restore 3 = 6pts. in favor
While you can do restoreToTimes with the backups, for the most part it takes on the 'ability to restore in case something goes wrong' definition.
Here we got the original: Just save the installer files with the backups, and when needed setup a quick temp box to restore to. (Move the backups around rsync/scp etc to wherever you wish; hard drives, tape, optical disk, etc)

But, The reason I suggested the automatic methods in the first place was because of the ease of search, I guess your first decision is zimbra's index & search capabilities, your filesystem's, or a thick-client's search?

Because it sounds like you are thinking that hopefully you won't need to go get these 5 year old emails on a regular basis but you still want them 'compliance like' & search-able.

Style 3: Compliance 1 Search 1 Restore 1 = 3pts. in favor
'snapshot status of their mailboxes' definition - These methods are even more manual & won't have all the actions they took + you could be missing mail that they've deleted between snapshot times.
-set up imapsync cron jobs to some cheaper mailserver box
-rsync copies of the store
-REST & CURL (export/imports)
-ie zip'ed .eml archives; when you want to view them import them into a thick-client OR convet .eml > .msg & use zmlmtpinject or zmmailbox addMessge to put the messages back into zimbra
-for calendars you export in .ics...reimport with curl, etc

[mmorse]

Did some edits-
Really if you analyze the above you'll find that the archiving methods & backup methods are designed for specific purposes to complement each other. One isn't (and really can't/shouldn't) be an end-all be-all method.

(I think your really asking for a backup browser, where you could view the mailbox as it was at a particular time without actually restoring the mailbox to the zcs server + search, but you still have to have the architecture in place to do so - which is why currently you just restore it anyway

Starting to understand all that? -lol