Diary of a Newbie 6a - "Oh crap; there's no way to do that"

[Baylink]

I can't imagine how I got this far along and missed the obvious.

My migration plan was to get the Z server in place, create all the accounts, set them all to pass-through to the Exchange server's SMTPin, and then, when everything was working properly, peel accounts off to the Z server one user at a time.

There's just one small, eensy problem.

I don't see how, now that I'm at that point, to convince Exchange to send inhouse mail to those users over to Z.

Can I use the Delivery Options->Alternate Recipient to do that?

I guess I'll try it. Keep it tuned right here, folks.

[mmorse]

That's why in the other thread I had said:

Originally Posted by mmorse

(As every system is different, we don't cover methods on how to tell your exchange box that the account previously local at it on it is no longer 'on it', and should be sent to the Zimbra box; whether you use fwd, transports and/or close out the account in exchange that's up to you.)

There's a few former exchange users around - can't help much as I just haven't used it in so long...for obvious reasons
It sounds like their 'Alternate Recipient' is a forward - getting mail in both locations shouldn't hurt.

[Baylink]

Apparently, you're quite forgettable, Mike. :-)

No, really, it's just me; I've been having a really overloaded couple weeks.

Yeah, I think I'll be able to do it this way, and as a bonus, there's a checkbox for "Deliver to the local recipient, too", so I can test.

There *is* a Migrating from Exchange writeup in the works for the wiki, in case you're wondering...

[Baylink]

There may not be any way to do this.

The problem is that in order to get Exchange to send the mail to somewhere other than itself, the only way I can find to do it is to forward it to jra@benjamin.vicimarketing.com, instead of jra@vicimarketing.com -- Exchange won't send the latter outside itself, because it "knows" that it is the mail server for that domain.

The problem is that Z is bouncing mail addressed that way, with a "loops back to myself" bounce message.

If I tell Z that its "real" host name is an alias for the domain, am I going to break anything?

[mmorse]

If you do Domain Alias/Forwarding/Catchall/Masquerading: ManagingDomains - Zimbra :: Wiki see things to note here: http://www.zimbra.com/forums/adminis...tml#post107627 (Mainly spam concerns - you'll be fine as it's temporary for just the migration.)
Alternatively if you don't want to alias the whole domain, you could account@domain.com alias > account@server.domain.com individually.

[Baylink]

I ended up doing just that first command to alias the domain, and everything seems to be working fine now; I set a alternate recipient at hostname.domain.com, and the mail copies over.

I'll do that for each recip, until I'm all moved, and then I'll pull the redirects off the individual accounts on Z, and do the final migrations and I'm done.

Doing it right, though, without losing any mail -- or a backout plan -- is much, much harder than it looks on the surface.

Thanks for the help, and pass my apologies on to Matt for all the bugs he has to triage. ;-)

[seachnasaigh]

We had a similar issue.
We started with a Sendmail MX host and Exchange as an internal MTA. We used .forward files in the MX host to get messages to Exchange in the first place (I didn't invent it, don't look at me in that tone of voice).
In our migration to Z, we're essentially creating an alias domain on the Z server for "lab.company" and then using Exchange's native ability to give accounts multiple SMTP addresses. We put in a rule to add user@lab.company to each recipient's email address, then as we move them, migrate that SMTP address to be Exchange's "primary" address for that account. The first part was semi-automatic, the second part is (obviously) tediously manual. It did work, though, with no dropped mail, on our 100+ test accounts. YMMV.
Oh ... at end-of-day, we essentially remove @lab.company from Z and all is well. Forgot that part, sorry.
--ckr

[Baylink]

What I wrote that you replied to isn't entirely the whole story; I'm writing it up for the wiki...

[seachnasaigh]

Understood; just adding my tuppence worth from the trenches. Look forward to the wiki on it then. If you need more info from the Exchange side, let me know; I've got ten years on Exchange (like being in prison, actually) and have made it do some odd backflips over the years. I'm hoping this migration to Zimbra is the last time I have to deal with it (or claim any expertise with it). Cheers.

--ckr

[Baylink]

That's Irish Gaelic, right?

Shann-ah-sye?