Installing Zimbra on VPS

[mkolbjor]

Hi all, first I'd like to say that Zimbra is a really awsome product, keep up the good work!

I'm trying to install Zimbra on a VPS, which of course is difficult. I've googled for hours on all sorts tweaks and hacks to get in installed properly, but still no go

I have a VPS on euroVPS, with 512 MB guaranteed and 1024 MB burst RAM. Only planning on running it with less than 10 users. But I can't get it to install properly, which is odd when I see people running Zimbra with 256 MB ram?

The install goes well all until the end, I'll paste part of the log from where things start to go wrong, of course the java is acting up:

*** Running as zimbra user: /opt/zimbra/bin/zmprov -l mcf zimbraComponentAvailable ''
Error occurred during initialization of VM
Could not reserve enough space for object heap
Could not create the Java virtual machine.
*** Running as zimbra user: zmlocalconfig -u trial_expiration_date
Error: key trial_expiration_date is not set
Notification skipped
Starting servers...
*** Running as zimbra user: /opt/zimbra/bin/zmcontrol start
Host e-post.cc
Unable to determine enabled services from ldap.
Unable to determine enabled services. Cache is out of date or doesn't exist.
done.
checking isEnabled zimbra-store
zimbra-store is enabled
Checking for deprecated zimlets...
Getting local config zimbra_ldap_password
ldap bind done for uid=zimbra,cn=admins,cn=zimbra
processing ldap search results
done.
Installing zimlets...

        com_zimbra_cert_manager
*** Running as zimbra user: /opt/zimbra/bin/zmzimletctl -l deploy zimlets/com_zimbra_cert_manager.zip
Error occurred during initialization of VM
Could not reserve enough space for object heap
Could not create the Java virtual machine.

[...]

From what I can tell, because the initial LDAP VM fails, then the rest fails too. Java is a hungry thing, looks at the server's total amount of RAM, but as far as I have read, I can limit how much memory it consumes at a time.

Is there anything I can do (except getting more RAM heh) to hack it? Send in some paramaters? Compile it myself? Install manually? install parts at a time?

I appreciate any help, would love to get it working, I'll even make a how-to if I do

[mkolbjor]

I've managed to get the installer to complete, if I chose "no" on the "start servers after install" option, but then the Tomcat acts up, it doesn't get installed and nothing works. Isin't it possible to run a command to do do those tasks afterards which would have been done if I chose to start the server in the script?

[phoenix]

You are way below the required RAM for a Zimbra installation that's why you are getting problems. We recommend 2GB for a working production server, increase the RAM on your VPS and that should remove the problems.

[konrad]

Originally Posted by phoenix

You are way below the required RAM for a Zimbra installation that's why you are getting problems. We recommend 2GB for a working production server, increase the RAM on your VPS and that should remove the problems.

Personally I had no issues at all installing 4.5.x 32bit with only 576 MB of RAM. It's also running quit well (not much swapping) as long as you reduce the number of amavis and apache processes. But then it all depends on the number of users you have...

Maybe you could check these:
- make sure you're using 32bit OS (64bit is more memory hungry)
- temporarly increase the amount of ram on your VPS just to install
- install 4.5 then upgrade to 5.0, or just stay with 4.5

[mkolbjor]

Originally Posted by phoenix

You are way below the required RAM for a Zimbra installation that's why you are getting problems. We recommend 2GB for a working production server, increase the RAM on your VPS and that should remove the problems.

Wish I could get more RAM, but how come people run it with 512 MB RAM?

[mkolbjor]

Originally Posted by konrad

Personally I had no issues at all installing 4.5.x 32bit with only 576 MB of RAM. It's also running quit well (not much swapping) as long as you reduce the number of amavis and apache processes. But then it all depends on the number of users you have...

Maybe you could check these:
- make sure you're using 32bit OS (64bit is more memory hungry)
- temporarly increase the amount of ram on your VPS just to install
- install 4.5 then upgrade to 5.0, or just stay with 4.5

- I am using 32bit
- euroVPS won't do that
- Tried with 4.5 still same problem

I can run without antivirus, antispam, but they are started by default and eats like 1/3 of my system, also did not install Logger.

[mkolbjor]

I have 2 VPS accounts, can't I put the LDAP server on one and the rest on the other?

[phvt]

Originally Posted by mkolbjor

I can run without antivirus, antispam, but they are started by default and eats like 1/3 of my system, also did not install Logger.

My Zimbra 5.0 test server is a VPS similar to yours at another provider. It works fine. I would absolutely use the menu-driven installation to disable AV/AS startup--just look through the menu and toggle those off. I do have logger running, but I think I need to axe that to stay below 500Mb. Good luck!