Multi-server install

[Krishopper]

This may be a dumb question with an obvious answer:

Does a multi-server install work with the Open Source edition, or only the Network Edition?

The reason I ask is because the Multi-Server Install guide has "NE" in the title, and the comparison list between the products only metions HA/Clustering. I'm not looking for that type of HA/Clustering, just adding some mailbox servers and MTA's to help with traffic and increased mailbox storage space.

Again, I apologize if the answer is obviously pointed out somewhere that I've missed.

[jholder]

Originally Posted by Krishopper

This may be a dumb question with an obvious answer:

Does a multi-server install work with the Open Source edition, or only the Network Edition?

The reason I ask is because the Multi-Server Install guide has "NE" in the title, and the comparison list between the products only metions HA/Clustering. I'm not looking for that type of HA/Clustering, just adding some mailbox servers and MTA's to help with traffic and increased mailbox storage space.

Again, I apologize if the answer is obviously pointed out somewhere that I've missed.

Well, as you mentioned, clustering is supported only in the network edition. I suppose the question would be, are you looking for any type of "syncing"? We may plan to offer this in the future- we currently don't offer this.

As far as auth sources, you can set up an open source zcs server to auth against another. . .but currently, there isn't' an option for provisioning accounts, ie, you'll have to create each account manually, or create a script to do it for you.

[dkarp]

Originally Posted by Krishopper

Does a multi-server install work with the Open Source edition, or only the Network Edition?

I believe that yes, you should be able to do a multi-server OSS install sharing the same directory.

[Krishopper]

I'm not looking for any type of "sync"ing. All I really want is to have multiple MTA's (not yet) and multiple mailbox servers (this is the immediate desire) for added capacity. If one goes down, I am willing to have that Zimbra machine and its resources unavailable.

The only thing I really want to add at this point is another mailbox server, with no sync'ing or high availability clustering with another one. I only want to add it for the increased storage space for new mailboxes.

[Krishopper]

Originally Posted by dkarp

I believe that yes, you should be able to do a multi-server OSS install sharing the same directory.

I guess this will take a test run using VMware to find out for sure :-)

[meofcourse]

Originally Posted by dkarp

I believe that yes, you should be able to do a multi-server OSS install sharing the same directory.

Does this mean that if I had a NFSv4 system setup, I could use the nfs as my store directory. I say v4 for file locking reasons ... (v4 is better than v3 for that reason alone). This way, I could have 4 servers. 2 running zimbra and 2 running my nfs (for load balancing). This would get around the fact that it is not supporting syncing between the servers. Then again....I've been researching this for the last week. Setting up a NFS seems just a little daunting.....

[brian]

Originally Posted by meofcourse

Does this mean that if I had a NFSv4 system setup, I could use the nfs as my store directory. I say v4 for file locking reasons ... (v4 is better than v3 for that reason alone). This way, I could have 4 servers. 2 running zimbra and 2 running my nfs (for load balancing). This would get around the fact that it is not supporting syncing between the servers. Then again....I've been researching this for the last week. Setting up a NFS seems just a little daunting.....

I'm sure Dan meant shared directory in terms of the LDAP directory not filesystem directory. NFS is a poor (wrong) choice for a ZCS message store (database ) and mail servers in general.

[meofcourse]

Originally Posted by Krishopper

I'm not looking for any type of "sync"ing. All I really want is to have multiple MTA's (not yet) and multiple mailbox servers (this is the immediate desire) for added capacity. If one goes down, I am willing to have that Zimbra machine and its resources unavailable.

The only thing I really want to add at this point is another mailbox server, with no sync'ing or high availability clustering with another one. I only want to add it for the increased storage space for new mailboxes.

Unfortunately, what you don't want is exactly what I do want. But, I still want to use the Open Source version (for cost). I'd rather spend more time than money.

On that note, I have a few questions of my own....

Does anyone have any suggestions as far as clustering a mail server store?

I'm trying to cover all my possibilities here. I understand how nfs is not ideal, but it is getting better. LDAP doesn't really do much in the way of clustering. MOSIX is mainly process clustering rather than data clustering.....That pretty much leaves me with two zimbra servers access a non-clustered share. The main concern I have with this is file locking. What happens when both servers access the same file at once? If anyone has some suggestions that would be great!

[Klug]

You can try DRBD (do a search on the forum) or Red Hat Cluster Suite (under CentOS because of cost) if what you want is failover.

Loadbalancing and Zimbra (mailstores) don't mix.