Web Client Performance

[uxbod]

are you able to launch a web browser directly on the server where Zimbra is installed ? this would help to understand whether it is a local LAN issue or not.

[palmczak]

are you able to launch a web browser directly on the server where Zimbra is installed ? this would help to understand whether it is a local LAN issue or not.

There is no GUI installed on Zimbra Box. I guess I could install it. But I hate using the resources X, GNOME etc require on a server. I was off yesterday, today I am back at the office and I will be doing some further testing.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

Joe

[dwmtractor]

Sorry I did not get back to you yesterday--sewer back-up at the house

To the best of my knowledge, Zimbra does NOT do RDNS to the internal clients. I'm pretty sure this is a red herring. DNS in general is a lookup-and-done thing anyhow, I don't see any plausible reason that, having made the connection to the web client, you'd have issues related to DNS for the ongoing prosecution of that connection.

I see you say you have the Zimbra server using outside DNS for its queries. What does it use to resolve itself--by this I mean its own, inside-the-DMZ address? Are you using bind or bind9 on the Zimbra server itself, as most of us do, or do you have a separate DNS on the DMZ, or perhaps neither? If the answer is neither, and Zimbra is only able to resolve its own hostname to the public IP address rather than its actual DMZ address, this could create a lot of heartburn. . .although I'm not sure if the installer would even work in that setting. . .what IP address to you get if you dig your mail server from the command line of that server itself?

Dan

[palmczak]

Sorry I did not get back to you yesterday--sewer back-up at the house

I see you say you have the Zimbra server using outside DNS for its queries. What does it use to resolve itself--by this I mean its own, inside-the-DMZ address? Are you using bind or bind9 on the Zimbra server itself, as most of us do, or do you have a separate DNS on the DMZ, or perhaps neither? If the answer is neither, and Zimbra is only able to resolve its own hostname to the public IP address rather than its actual DMZ address, this could create a lot of heartburn. . .although I'm not sure if the installer would even work in that setting. . .what IP address to you get if you dig your mail server from the command line of that server itself?

Dan

The Zimbra server uses bind9 split DNS and resolves to its LAN IP. After further testing yesterday, it appears that some of the trouble is that 2003AD and DNS are part of the slowness since I am not completely confident in Windows DNS. Clients point to a Windows DNS server that is not authoritative for the domain that the Zimbra server part of. it is not exactly clear when but the client machines do not always use the host file but first query DNS server this is troublesome since query returns the public IP, this confuses the firewall. etc. I know it is not a good practice but pointing a test PC to the zimbra server for DNS makes things mucho better.

The balance of the slowness appears to be Java/AJAX related, as the standard HTML interface runs very very well. Ajax interface runs OK. But still a pause that is rather annoying but nothing like we had before.

Thanks,

Joe

[dwmtractor]

The Zimbra server uses bind9 split DNS and resolves to its LAN IP.

This is good.

After further testing yesterday, it appears that some of the trouble is that 2003AD and DNS are part of the slowness since I am not completely confident in Windows DNS. Clients point to a Windows DNS server that is not authoritative for the domain that the Zimbra server part of. it is not exactly clear when but the client machines do not always use the host file but first query DNS server this is troublesome since query returns the public IP, this confuses the firewall. etc. I know it is not a good practice but pointing a test PC to the zimbra server for DNS makes things mucho better.

ahh, NOW I understand! Instead of relying on the local .hosts file of your Windows PCs, just add a new zone whatever.com to the DNS on your AD server and add a record that points mail.whatever.com to your internal DMZ address instead of to the public IP. I have this set up on my AD servers and it works great. Basically your AD server's DNS will be led to believe it's authoritative for whatever.com, even though the rest of the world knows better, and it won't query outside for that information, and your local clients will get what they need from your primary DNS, which is the AD server.

Hope this helps,

Dan