Debian/Zimbra problems :(

[jammy]

Hello gang,

I have a Debian Sarge system, which i've loaded with a 2.6.16 kernel from backports.org. I wanted the kernel for some other things, but I believe that should also get me past the problems mentioned here with the base 2.6.8 kernel Sarge typically has installed.

I had the system up and running pretty good for a week or so. Following some posts here, i'd limited the webmail interface to only operating on port 443, so I could run a "regular" apache on port 80 and have my other websites.

Something happened.

It could have been a system reboot (i've read posts mentioning permission issues - specifically on Debian?), or the fact I re-ip'd the external interface on the system. I was also looking at installing a "regular" mysql for some other apps on the system, but I don't it should affect anything since it's running on a different port with a different config.

The last thing I saw in one of the activity logs, was me attempting to enable the POP server, and reset the password on one of my accounts.

After some fiddling, I got the system to a state where it was receiving email again, and relaying mail out to external addresses that were in mailing lists, but I can not log in to pickup mail at all.

It's interesting to note that the POP server was never started..

This is the error I see on the webmail interface when I try to login: "An unknown application error has occurred. Please correct any errors and retry. If the problem persists, please contact your System Administrator. (INVALID_PDU)"

Hopeing this was a simple configuration (or permissions) issue, I thought i'd look into the 4.0GA that was just released. It took some tweeking to get it up (it was failing in a few places, and was complaining about some permission issues), but it too is stuck at essentially the same status.

The hardware is currently an Athlon XP 2400 with 512megs of RAM.. I do intend on raising the RAM requirements, but at this point, I would think the system can handle ~10 mail accounts (migration of email from Courier-mta/imap was very fast).

I do find it incredibly slow to startup at this point.. I don't know if something is timing out, or if there's problems in the tomcat/java department..

i've just run the command "zmprov help server" (as user zimbra), and it's taken about a minute to come back with an error - the error essentially is that the Servlet AdminServlet is not available (between all the html).

Does anybody have any ideas?

[jholder]

Hi-
Do you have pop3/imap access?

Also, please note that debian isn't officially supported, so you may not get many responses.

Looks like a SOAP error? Try turning on the debugger for more info (search for that).

I assume zmcontrol status is returning that everything is running?

[jammy]

Originally Posted by wannabetenor

Hi-
Do you have pop3/imap access?

No, I don't ;-( When I connect in to port 143, I don't get any response to my IMAP session commands..

Originally Posted by wannabetenor

Also, please note that debian isn't officially supported, so you may not get many responses.

Yeah, I kinda got that impression.. Do you know what the kernel limitation is/was? Does it affect any other libraries on the system?

Originally Posted by wannabetenor

Looks like a SOAP error? Try turning on the debugger for more info (search for that).

I assume zmcontrol status is returning that everything is running?

eventually yes.. Although it takes *FOREVER* to get to that point..

[jammy]

This is the eerror that comes up in the zimbra.log when I try to login in the webmail client

2006-09-07 23:48:26,661 INFO [http-443-Processor99] [] [SoapServlet] - Servlet SoapServlet is currently unavailable

[jammy]

I'm hopeing that this is just a generic configuration problem, and not debian specific.. Anybody have an idea how I can reset the password it seems to be having a problem with here?


==> /opt/zimbra/log/spamtrain.log <==
Exception in thread "main" com.zimbra.cs.service.ServiceException: system failure: admin auth failed url=https://home.jammys.net:7071/service/admin/soap/
at com.zimbra.cs.service.ServiceException.FAILURE(Ser viceException.java:174)

[dijichi2]

your lack of system memory will be a real issue - its setup for 2gb, and even on 1gb under light load the system can start to swap like crazy. search on this forum for how to limit the memory of tomcat and mysql, that will help for a start.

the kernel issue was a serious one. search this forum for kernel permissions errors. do 'chown -R zimbra:zimbra /opt/zimbra/index' to reset anything borked.

Debian is not a network edition but it is an official open source edition so 'supported'-ish-kinda I have to say debian is a mess, i've found it not suitable for enterprise environment and I'm ditching all my debian installs and changing back to redhat/suse.

[jammy]

Originally Posted by dijichi2

your lack of system memory will be a real issue - its setup for 2gb, and even on 1gb under light load the system can start to swap like crazy. search on this forum for how to limit the memory of tomcat and mysql, that will help for a start.

I have actually upped it to 1G at this point, and if I can get things working better I'm not against raising it more.. I'm hopeing that the amount of ram is just a performance issue though, not a functionality one.

the kernel issue was a serious one. search this forum for kernel permissions errors. do 'chown -R zimbra:zimbra /opt/zimbra/index' to reset anything borked.

i'm all good there, so i'd guess my 2.6.16 is fine.

Debian is not a network edition but it is an official open source edition so 'supported'-ish-kinda I have to say debian is a mess, i've found it not suitable for enterprise environment and I'm ditching all my debian installs and changing back to redhat/suse.

Interesting, i've heard exactly the opposite, with many people leaving Redhat going other places - with debian being an often choice..

Either way, this isn't a good place for a distro war

I think i'm narrowing down my issues.. This looks bad:


2006-09-09 21:38:55,861 INFO [main] [] [/service] - Marking servlet AdminServlet as unavailable
2006-09-09 21:38:55,862 ERROR [main] [] [/service] - Servlet /service threw load() exception
javax.servlet.UnavailableException: system failure: Could not bind to port=110 bindaddr=null ssl=false
at com.zimbra.soap.SoapServlet.init(SoapServlet.java: 118)


The last thing I was trying to do the day it blew up was to enable POP, so this might explain something.. Any guesses as to why the system can bind to IMAP but not to POP?

[dijichi2]

I have actually upped it to 1G at this point, and if I can get things working better I'm not against raising it more.. I'm hopeing that the amount of ram is just a performance issue though, not a functionality one.

yup 1gb is fine, i run a couple of boxes with 1gb. i have had to reduce the mem usage of both tomcat and mysql though otherwise the swap and loag increases heavily. but no problems actually working.

Interesting, i've heard exactly the opposite, with many people leaving Redhat going other places - with debian being an often choice..
Either way, this isn't a good place for a distro war

bah, you wasted a perfectly good flamebait

2006-09-09 21:38:55,861 INFO [main] [] [/service] - Marking servlet AdminServlet as unavailable
2006-09-09 21:38:55,862 ERROR [main] [] [/service] - Servlet /service threw load() exception
javax.servlet.UnavailableException: system failure: Could not bind to port=110 bindaddr=null ssl=false
at com.zimbra.soap.SoapServlet.init(SoapServlet.java: 118)

make sure nothing already there when you telnet to 110? what happens if you do 'zmlocalconfig |grep zimbra_server_hostname'?

[jammy]

Originally Posted by dijichi2

bah, you wasted a perfectly good flamebait

make sure nothing already there when you telnet to 110?

there's nothing there at all. Before or after.

what happens if you do 'zmlocalconfig |grep zimbra_server_hostname'?

it returns my hostname - that is resolvable in DNS as well as /etc/hosts

There also seems to be problems with imapproxy (perdition?) Which I don't think i'm even using.. but it sure takes a long time to "stop" it (with zmcontrol stop, or the init.d script)...

[jammy]

So, here's the flow I think has happened..

Last week I attempted to enable the POP3 server.. for some reason this has failed.
The admin applet on port 7071 is now disabled.. When I startup the system, this is what I eventually get:

2006-09-10 15:17:38,067 INFO [main] [] [/service] - Marking servlet AdminServlet as unavailable
2006-09-10 15:17:38,067 ERROR [main] [] [/service] - Servlet /service threw load() exception
javax.servlet.UnavailableException: system failure: Could not bind to port=110 bindaddr=null ssl=false
at com.zimbra.soap.SoapServlet.init(SoapServlet.java: 118)

the utility "zmprov" doesn't function - it seems to use the Applet running on port 7071 - but it takes *FOREVER* to finally error out (like 5-10 minutes).

because "zmprov" is used by everything, it takes about half an hour for "zmcontrol start" to complete :-(

So, now how do I turn off the pop3 server until I can figure out what's wrong?