Debian APT repository?

[ralfbergs]

Hi there,

I can't find a Debian APT repository for Zimbra packages.

Does that mean it simply doesn't exist, or didn't I try hard enough?

Thanks,

Ralf

[phoenix]

It doesn't exist, download the Zimbra binaries and install from that.

[ralfbergs]

Hi phoenix,

I did that already, but I thought I would be able to keep my installation up-to-date easily by using an APT repository.

Cheers,

Ralf

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by ralfbergs

I did that already, but I thought I would be able to keep my installation up-to-date easily by using an APT repository.

We release a new binary when there's an update to Zimbra.

[p24t]

Originally Posted by ralfbergs

I thought I would be able to keep my installation up-to-date easily by using an APT repository.

Personally, I wouldn't want something as major as Zimbra to be auto-updated. Just asking for trouble there.

[ralfbergs]

I strongly disagree.

If Zimbra has/had the same level of quality as Debian has -- which I can't tell since I just installed it for the first time -- this would not be a problem at all.

[jholder]

The issue isn't with quality. It's licensing.

Zimbra contains many third part components in the Open Source and Network Editions. Licenses prohibit us from putting into repositories like Fedora YUM and Debian APT.

I actually attended the FudCon, and we're actively trying to find a solution with different vendors.

http://www.zimbra.com/license/zimbra...enses_2.1.html

[ralfbergs]

Sorry, maybe my reply was a little bit subject to misunderstanding.

What I meant to write is "If Zimbra is similarly quality software as Debian is, then auto-updating is no problem at all."

Thanks for pointing me to the license issue, which I was not aware of and which I hadn't expected.

Anyway, I'm sure many of us would appreciate it to be able to auto-update via APT/aptitude, so please do your best to make this possible. :-)

[p24t]

And I meant that a Zimbra install can be so massive, with so many little changes and quirks, that an automatic install could severely hose things.

I need to make customizations every time I upgrade. There's theme changes, little stuff here and there. Then you get into not only upgrading mysql, postfix, clamav, etc etc etc, but then there's the potential for database scheme changes and upgrades. You know there's too much chance for something like that to go wrong.

Sure, I could set my Zimbra at home to auto-update without worries. But my mailserver at work, which the company depends on, (and I could get fired for if it suddenly went away) is going to be done on a scheduled basis. (weekends, etc)

edit: I bet you could get a DBA's head to explode if you told him his Oracle would be updating by itself.

[wolrah]

Originally Posted by jholder

The issue isn't with quality. It's licensing.

Zimbra contains many third part components in the Open Source and Network Editions. Licenses prohibit us from putting into repositories like Fedora YUM and Debian APT.

Just a point of clarification, this would prevent you from getting in to the official Debian repositories, but it would not in any way stop you from operating your own Debian repo. You might even be able to get the FOSS version in to the Debian non-free repo and as far as I know Ubuntu is not anywhere close to as restrictive so you could probably land in universe or multiverse there.

Even the network edition could get in to Ubuntu's partner repo if they were willing to work with you, there's plenty of closed stuff in there.

Again though, you could easily run your own apt repo with whatever licensing you want. All we'd have to do is add a line like 'deb http://apt.zimbra.com/ etch main' to our /etc/apt/sources.list, apt-get update, then we could apt-get install zcs or apt-get install zcs-ne (or whatever you want to call the packages) and all would be well in theory.

I know I'd sure enjoy being able to do apt-get update & apt-get upgrade maybe once a week and know I'm running not only the latest kernel and system packages but also the latest ZCS version. Obviously set it to hold between major version releases, but minor versions should be pretty safe.