Zimbra

holunde · #1 (**permalink**) 06-17-2007, 02:22 PM

I'm posting this, because I'm going to start Zimbra for production use soon, and I would hate to miss out on something important.

I've got Zimbra 4.5.5 up and running on Debian Etch 32bit doing some of the things already mentioned in other posts.

install the following packages:

sudo curl fetchmail libgmp3c2 libssl0.9.7 libdb3 libxml2 perl libexpat1 libpcre3 file

It seems that

libio-socket-ssl-perl
libmail-imapclient-perl
libmail-pop3client-perl

and a few others, spell modules for example are also necessary

edit /etc/debian_version to 3.1 from 4.0
edit /utils/utilfunc.sh and change script to look for libgmp3c2 not libgmp3

But, I found it necessary to set up the following soft links in /usr/lib

libcrypto.so.0.9.7 -> libcrypto.so.0.9.8
libssl.so.0.9.7 -> libssl.so.0.9.8

With that and some dns-tweaking everything seems to run just fine.

I have some questions for the Zimbra guys though.

Firstly, is this installation method likely to cause major problems, when upgrading zimbra some day?

Secondly, it looks as if there are three files in /opt/zimbra with wrong usernames. They are created during installation.
Is this a bug? Changing ownership to zimbra manually seems to be ok.

-rw-r--r-- 1 zimbra zimbra 20 2007-06-13 23:57 .bash_history
-r--r--r-- 1 503 503 232 2007-05-04 02:45 .bash_profile
-r--r--r-- 1 503 503 1009 2007-05-04 02:45 .bashrc
-r--r--r-- 1 503 503 62 2007-05-04 02:45 .exrc

Thirdly, in the log, the amavis-process only loads some things, se below.
Is this important, or should something be done about it?

Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra amavis[20018]: Amavis::Cache code loaded
Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra amavis[20018]: SQL base code NOT loaded
Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra amavis[20018]: SQL::Log code NOT loaded
Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra amavis[20018]: SQL::Quarantine NOT loaded
Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra amavis[20018]: Lookup::SQL code NOT loaded
Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra amavis[20018]: Lookup::LDAP code loaded
Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra amavis[20018]: AM.PDP-in proto code loaded
Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra amavis[20018]: SMTP-in proto code loaded
Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra amavis[20018]: Courier proto code NOT loaded
Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra amavis[20018]: SMTP-out proto code loaded
Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra amavis[20018]: Pipe-out proto code NOT loaded
Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra amavis[20018]: BSMTP-out proto code NOT loaded
Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra amavis[20018]: Local-out proto code loaded
Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra amavis[20018]: OS_Fingerprint code NOT loaded
Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra amavis[20018]: ANTI-VIRUS code loaded
Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra amavis[20018]: ANTI-SPAM code loaded
Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra amavis[20018]: ANTI-SPAM-SA code loaded
Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra amavis[20018]: Unpackers code loaded
Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra amavis[20018]: Found $file at /usr/bin/file
Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra amavis[20018]: No $dspam, not using it

The last entry for dspam can be changed to load it by uncommenting line 104 in /opt/zimbra/conf/amavisd.conf.in :

#$dspam = '/opt/zimbra/dspam/bin/dspam';

Why is this commented out by default?

Fourthly, I guess that the following server-start log-stuff is just normal, as everything seems completely stable, once the server is running. Spam-checks seem to work etc.

Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra zimbramon[19396]: 19396:info: Starting mta
Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra amavis[20018]: SpamControl: initializing Mail::SpamAssassin
Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra amavis[20018]: SpamControl: init_pre_fork done
Jun 14 01:12:05 zimbra postfix/postqueue[20056]: fatal: Queue report unavailable - mail system is down
Jun 14 01:12:07 zimbra postfix/postfix-script: warning: not owned by root: /opt/zimbra/postfix-2.2.9/conf/main.cf
Jun 14 01:12:07 zimbra postfix/postfix-script: starting the Postfix mail system

Finally, I must say, that I'm really impressed with this product.
We've been running qmail with different frontends for some years. The server part is great, but it has been impossible to find a modern web-interface that is satisfactory for modern use.
The Zimbra client is a little slow to load but otherwise FANTASTIC in every aspect.
If I'm sucessful with this, well definitely consider upgrading to one of the payment versions.

Danish greetings

Hans Otto Lunde

phoenix · #2 (**permalink**) 06-17-2007, 02:32 PM

I'm afraid that I wouldn't recommend Debian if it's going to be a production system (or any other for that matter). It has a kernel problem that causes permissions problems if a process terminates abnormally and, as far as I know, it hasn't been fixed yet - please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. If you're going to upgrade to the NE version sometime the my recommendation would be to get a NE supported operating system such as RHEL, Ubuntu 6.06 LTS etc.

holunde · #3 (**permalink**) 06-17-2007, 06:03 PM

Could you direct me to some info on this?

My reason for choosing Debian is because I find it the most reliable Linux server system. It might be a little outdated, but 100% stable.
Excactly what kernel issue are we talking about?
I'm running Debian Etch 2.6.18-4-686 SMP on a Xeon-server with an Areca 1120 controller - doing raid5 with 3 discs

and everything seems to be absolutely fine...

phoenix · #4 (**permalink**) 06-18-2007, 12:25 AM

Search the forums for 'debian kernel bug' for some info. As I said, it may have been fixed in Etch but I don't know for sure. We do intend to release a version for Debian Etch as it has the newer kernel, see bug 17111. You may also want to consider moving off the RAID5 if you have anywhere near 100 users on Zimbra as that configuration has performance problems.

holunde · #5 (**permalink**) 06-20-2007, 05:17 PM

I've been looking into the problem and haven't been able to find anyone saying that Debian Etch should have a kernel issue with regards to Zimbra.
I started the production server last night with app. 150 users and I have moved about 40.000 emails onto it from the old server, while connected and receiving and sending emails.
Everything seems 100% rock solid(!)
I know that RAID 5 has rather limited write-performance but this system seems ok, it reads with app. 130 Mb/s and writes with about half of that and it seems quite fine. It's hardware-raid I should mention.

I thank you for your answer, but I would really like, if you could answer directly to the last 3 questions in my original posting to this thread.

I would also stress that Zimbra really ROCKS. My users are already talking about how cool it is. The Ajax-features are just so great that nobody seems to care, that the client is a little slow to start. Once it get's going it just lets people forget, that they are using a browser. The user-experience is fantastic!
As an administrator I slowly begin to get the feeling, that this product is special, because EVERYTHING just works. It gives you a feeling of security and relaxation.
I hope that you will have continue to support Debian. Zimbra has the potential to be one of the things that will convince everyone that Open Source and Linux is here to stay.

I think I'm getting to be a Zimbra-convert - seriously... But, please. If you have the time - look into my three questions

Hans Otto

djve · #6 (**permalink**) 06-20-2007, 05:59 PM

Well I'm testing Zimbra at the moment but I know this is from SpamAssassin.
If you check out the SpamAssassin web pages you'll see what each call is for. As an example:
Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf::SQL - load SpamAssassin scores from SQL database

So its showing what modules are not loaded. BSMTP (batch SMTP) isn't loaded and I think that's the correct setting. You'd need to examine all of the SpamAssassin settings but I'm going to put my trust in Zimbra and believe they have worked out a reasonable set of features.

jholder · #7 (**permalink**) 06-20-2007, 06:05 PM

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