setting up a copy of production in staging...

zcs-7.1.1_GA_3204.SLES11_64 (patched)

Hi all,

I am trying to set a server in staging to reflect what we have in production. The server in staging has less resources than in production

My first attempt was to:
- install zimbra in staging
- rsync production to it
- update zimbra to the next version (due to patch) to be sure that zimbra is clean
- change tuning to match limited resources
- reset the server name (zmsetservername)
... it failed

I then tried to install using the installation configuration file from production:
- cahnge hostname and network information
- sudo ./install.sh config.prod
... it failed

I was hoping a hostname change and some tuning would be enough but it seems I was wrong.

How would you do this without having to set all parameters by hand and risk making mistakes?

Thanks for your help!

Are you just trying to see if the upgrade will work on a production-like server? Or are you trying to setup a new server to eventually become the new production server?

If you want an exact copy to make sure the upgrade will not fail on the actual production server, why not place the needed upgrade files on your production server, make a full-server backup and restore it to a new server as if it were a restore in a disaster recovery situation...but keep it from connecting to the network long enough to change the IP address (or just keep it off the network) and perform the upgrade to see how it goes.

LHammonds

Hi LHammonds,

The idea is to have a server in staging that matches as closely as possible what we have in production.

We'd use it to test upgrades but also to test a load of other things such as interacting with the LDAP directly, running automated scripts, offering new services, ...

In short, what one does in staging before moving to production.

All I'm trying to do is avoid doing a clean installation in staging and have to compare each and every setting by hand with the risk of error that comes with that.

That sounds like something I plan on doing but have not yet done so. See here. ;)

Thanks for that. Backups are of course the first step I want to play with when I have my new environment all setup.

It looks like I'll be doing a fresh installation. I had managed to move a system from debian to ubuntu at one time by simply installing/rsync over/update over rsync but it did not work for a change in environment.

Oh well, here we go.

From my limited understanding, if you want to setup a 2nd server that will eventually take over, you do a bare-bones install of Zimbra on the target server, then rsync the files over.

I read about this procedure somewhere (probably the wiki)...I'll post a link if I find it. However, I don't know if that procedure will work when using different platforms...however, Debian and Ubuntu share a common codebase.

LHammonds

Hi,

sorry for the late reply.

I managed to do a test move from a zimbra server running on debian to a zimbra server of the same version running on ubuntu.

The way I did this was this:

- install a basic zimbra server with no particular settings.
- rsync my debian zimbra to the new ubuntu server.
- update zimbra on the ubuntu server to the same version you are running to make sure all is in place and accepted by zimbra.

... don't forget to copy your crontab if you had changes in it! ;)

Hope this very basic howto can help someone. It really was straight forward but debian and ubuntu have a lot in common.