Zimbra Test alongside existing Imap server

[quietas]

Here's the deal. I managed to get Ubuntu 7.10 server and Zimbra 5.04 to play nice this weekend. I had to use 7.10 instead of 6.06 due to Grub not loading correctly on my test box, but that's another story.

The current mail server is a Debian 4 box, running Exim, Courier-IMAP, Mailscanner, and PHPGroupware. It works, but the box is getting unreliable and PHPgroupware is really showing it's age.

I've got the Zimbra test system running on my network, nslookup and DNS are working, DNS on my main DNS server has MX records. All works, I think.

Is there a way to have Zimbra running side by side, mirroring my production server for specific users? would it be as easy as setting up users and accounts that point at my current mail server? Or is there a way to have mail split between both servers?

[phoenix]

A Split Domain is what you'd be looking for: Split Domain - Zimbra :: Wiki

[quietas]

This sounds close, but reading through it I seem to understand that the secondary Zimbra server would be hosting mail along with the primary.

Basically I would like to have all mail and users functioning on the primary server only. The few I would like on the Zimbra test box would be mirrors of their accounts on the primary. They need to not move off that server for now, but need to be able to access mail on the primary or have that mail copy to both servers as it comes in to the primary.

Basically I want to test with a few existing users, but not change or interrupt existing services. Maybe I'm misreading or not being totally clear.

[Rich Graves]

You could (mostly) get that working by creating empty accounts on the Zimbra server, and defining the original server as an external IMAP account (Preferences/Accounts). The original sync Might Take A While, but it should work.

Starting with 5.0.4, flags like read/replied are synced, so it can (almost) be a smooth transition. When done testing, undefine the external IMAP account. The synced folders become normal folders.

[quietas]

That sounds like what I want, so I went ahead and set it up, or rather I'm trying to. I've set up my settings exactly like I would with Outlook or Thunderbird. Using the IP for the mail server it works, if I use the mail.domain.com name it says it can't find it. I can ping the dns name as well as the IP from command line though.

[quietas]

OK, I have the External account set up, this gives us a good idea of what it looks like. But from the admin side it would be nice to have a couple dozen users mirrored somehow. I guess I am just not understanding the split domain, because it looked like that was not possible.

[phoenix]

OK, I have the External account set up, this gives us a good idea of what it looks like. But from the admin side it would be nice to have a couple dozen users mirrored somehow. I guess I am just not understanding the split domain, because it looked like that was not possible.

I didn't understand from your original post that the objective was to mirror the mail on the Zimbar server, I'm afraid it's move an account to the new server and not have the same account on both servers. The method that Rich describes is about the nearest you'd get and should work but it's a bit cumbersome.

[quietas]

Dang, that was what I didn't want to hear. I was hoping there was a way to have the mail live on both servers for comparisons. I guess it will just be simpler then to set up a sub-domain and put the test server there with it's own MX records.