Problems with Zimbra 5.06 install on Centos 5.1

[wanderson]

When attempting to install Zimbra 5.06GA on CentOS 5.1 server - folowing the install advice on Zimbra Forums by Neil McCauley, I received the
following error message:

ERROR: Installation cannot proceed. Please fix your /etc/hosts file to contain:
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost

Zimbra install grants mysql permissions only to localhost and localhost.localdomain users. But Fedora/Redhat installs leave lines such as these in /etc/host:

127.0.0.1 myhost.mydomain.com myhost localhost.localdomain localhost

This causes MySQL to reject users coming from 127.0.0.1 as users from myhost.mydomain.com you can read more details at:
MySQL Bugs: #11822: Reverse lookup for 127.0.0.1 not accounted for in mysql_install_db

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Following is standard "hosts" file configuration on CentOS 5.1 setup.
/etc/hosts

# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
127.0.0.1 blackbox.kimalcorp.org blackbox localhost.localdomain localhost
::1 localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6

Even when I inserted line advised by Zimbra install process (from above error message) as fist line, the install prcess did not proceed, and repeated to error message.

The Zimbra install process only continued install when I commented out all other lines, however it then halted again at point of rejecting my (real) host name as 'blackbox' or even 'localhost'.

I was also unable to perform network login to host machine, making the entire Zimbra install process untenable.


Help on this project is greatly appreciated.


Please advise.

wanderson@nac.net

[phoenix]

Your hosts file is incorrect, this has been covered many times in the forums and there's several 'how to' for CentOS if you search, check the required format for the file in the Quick Start Installation Guide. You should also make sure you have the required DNS A & MX records set.

[eaperezh]

wanderson, you have hit one of the all-time problems on linux system (specially on redhat/centos).
Reading your post I can suggest the following:

1- edit /etc/hosts and make sure it says

# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
::1 localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6
xx.xx.xx.xx blackbox.kimalcorp.org blackbox

please replace the xx with your real ip address. Also note the in the hosts file the expected format for many programs that use it is:

ipaddress host.domain.tld host

which can be seen as (the ip is just an example):

192.168.1.1 blackbox.kimalcorp.org blackbox

You will have to fully remove and reinstall zimbra. Because zimbra must get these parameters right the first time, otherwise you will have nasty problems in the future. Also, some other programs that you install on the system will encounter errors if you do not modify /etc/hosts before installing them.

In the future, if there is more than one ip address assigned to your system, make sure you enter it in the /etc/hosts file.

Example:
Another ip (10.10.10.10) is assigned to your server, same server name

# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
::1 localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6
192.168.1.1 blackbox.kimalcorp.org blackbox
10.10.10.10 blackbox.kimalcorp.org blackbox

Another name (mail2) is assigned to your server for the 192.168.1.1 ip

# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
::1 localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6
192.168.1.1 blackbox.kimalcorp.org blackbox mail2
10.10.10.10 blackbox.kimalcorp.org blackbox

As you can see, you do not need to create another IP entry as long as the system is going to be called mail2.kimalcorp.org. The linux system sees the entry mail2 and it assumes the kimalcorp.org domain name.

Cheers,

[BarefootPanda]

Great post eaperezh and welcome wanderson!