Issues to consider before migrating

[bhwong]

Most software providers will only advertise their strengths and not their weaknesses. I felt that it will benefit everyone if weaknesses (frustrating and problematic issues) are published so that we can make an informed choice when choosing Zimbra. It will even be helpful if someone found ways to overcome these weaknesses too.

Here's my frustrating issues experienced so far:

1. Beside attachment, Outlook can embed images inside the email itself. Zimbra can't do this and will create broken image link when forwarding email with embed images.

2. Some emails appear to be completely empty but the content will appear when you forward it. We found that to force the content to display as text will resolve this, but all text styles will disappear.

3. There is no way to find out where is this mailbox is located on the harddisk, making manual migrating or backup near impossible.

4. There is no option to sort address book by first or last name. This is mess up all non-english names

5. There is no way to manage Zimbra if the Admin webpage is inaccessible.

6. It is very easy to corrupt Zimbra and make the admin webpage inaccessible if you type wrong command in the Terminal. There is virtually no protection against this.

7. Global Address Book does not exist (not the same as shared address book, as it has to be shared again for every new account)

8. There is no option to send email thru another account that will show the email address of the account used to send. Zimbra insist to put the default account at the from field.

Anyone has any solution for the above mentioned issue? Anyone has any more frustrating issues to share that I may not yet encounter?

[uxbod]

3. There is no way to find out where is this mailbox is located on the harddisk, making manual migrating or backup near impossible.

Incorrect as you are able to get the mailbox ID from zmmailbox and the users messages are help under /opt/zimbra/store.

5. There is no way to manage Zimbra if the Admin webpage is inaccessible.

CLI access is available.

6. It is very easy to corrupt Zimbra and make the admin webpage inaccessible if you type wrong command in the Terminal. There is virtually no protection against this.

Depends on what has been done and whether the Admin understands the implications. Hence the forums and asking first

8. There is no option to send email thru another account that will show the email address of the account used to send. Zimbra insist to put the default account at the from field.

Persona's

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by bhwong

Most software providers will only advertise their strengths and not their weaknesses. I felt that it will benefit everyone if weaknesses (frustrating and problematic issues) are published so that we can make an informed choice when choosing Zimbra. It will even be helpful if someone found ways to overcome these weaknesses too.

There's plenty of discussion in these forums about problems that people encounter when using Zimbra, nothing is hidden.

Originally Posted by bhwong

Here's my frustrating issues experienced so far:

Have you filed any bug reports or feature enhancements for any these points you raise? Did you search the forums and/or wiki for resolutions to these points?

Originally Posted by bhwong

7. Global Address Book does not exist (not the same as shared address book, as it has to be shared again for every new account)

Really, the online help in the Admin UI gives me the following:

Configuring the Global Address List

The Global Address List (GAL), also known as corporate address book or company directory, is a listing of all employees within an organization or department. GAL is a commonly used feature in mail systems so users can look up another user's information by first or last name, without having to know the complete email address.

GAL is configured on a per-domain basis. The GAL mode setting for each domain determines where the GAL lookup is performed. The GAL Configuration Wizard is used to configure the attributes. Select one of the following GAL configurations:

*

Internal. The Zimbra LDAP server is used for directory lookups.
*

External. External directory servers are used for GAL lookups. You can configure multiple external LDAP hosts for GAL. All other directory services use the Zimbra LDAP service (configuration, mail routing, etc.). When you configure the external GAL mode, you can configure GAL search and GAL sync separately. Configuring search and sync separately lets you configure different search settings and sync settings.
*

Both. Internal and external directory servers are used for GAL lookups.

Isn't that a 'Global Address Book' or GAL (as it's called in the documentation)?

Originally Posted by bhwong

1. Beside attachment, Outlook can embed images inside the email itself. Zimbra can't do this and will create broken image link when forwarding email with embed images.

2. Some emails appear to be completely empty but the content will appear when you forward it. We found that to force the content to display as text will resolve this, but all text styles will disappear.

Are the two statements about Outlook? Are they both using the Outlook COnnector or IMAP? Are they with languages other than English? There's a lack of information here to make any informed comment.

[bhwong]

Hi uxbod,

3. How do I get the mailbox ID from zmmailbox? And how does it reveal the folder location under /opt/zimbra/store?

5. How can I access this CLI?

6. Unfortunately, the very reason why I end up running the wrong command and corrupt Zimbra is actually what you have suggested. I asked the forum first and they suggested me to run this command without telling me the implications.

8. Persona or External email accounts all insist to send email out using your primary email address. You only get to change the name, not the email.



Hi Phoenix,

> There's plenty of discussion in these forums about problems that people encounter when using Zimbra, nothing is hidden.

Yes, but it's not easy to find dig them out one by one unless someone compile all the problems under an FAQ.

> Have you filed any bug reports or feature enhancements for any these points you raise? Did you search the forums and/or wiki for resolutions to these points?

Yes I did. In fact, I notice that there are always more people telling me what I have done is wrong (which isn't helpful since what was done was already done) rather than advising me what can I do next to resolve the problem.

> Isn't that a 'Global Address Book' or GAL (as it's called in the documentation)?

The GAL is using LDAP and Active Directory, both are incomplete since most of our employees are from other difference domains which cannot be merged into a single LDAP or AD.

> Are the two statements about Outlook? Are they both using the Outlook COnnector or IMAP? Are they with languages other than English? There's a lack of information here to make any informed comment.

They are not using Outlook Conector nor IMAP. They are using Zimbra Desktop Client to view emails. The emails are English. Do you mean non-English will cause problem for Zimbra but not Outlook?

If you are keen to investigate, I can do a screen capture for you.

Thanks everyone for your respond,

Boon Hong.

[mmorse]

Originally Posted by bhwong

3. How do I get the mailbox ID from zmmailbox? And how does it reveal the folder location under /opt/zimbra/store?

zmprov gmi user@domain.com
Divide by 100 gets the mysql group and general store dir. If you need to find an individual message, get it's item id, calculate it's hash (4096 divide by 2^12 rounded down) and get it's revision # from mod_content field. Covered in detail here: Account mailbox database structure - Zimbra :: Wiki

Originally Posted by bhwong

5. How can I access this CLI?

su - zimbra (To run ZCS specific commands Zimbra CLI Command List - Zimbra :: Wiki - you can also communicate with mysql, ldapmodify, and a few things have hand configurable files.)
Your prior posts show that's you've used command-line-interface before.

Originally Posted by bhwong

6. Unfortunately, the very reason why I end up running the wrong command and corrupt Zimbra is actually what you have suggested. I asked the forum first and they suggested me to run this command without telling me the implications.

For other in brief: This was the copied server rename issue where the zmsetservername ran on the test box affected the live server - this is because DNS lookups found the production box and re-rwote it's LDAP instead.

Originally Posted by bhwong

I have installed Zimbra in a VM and I want to clone this VM so that I can do some testing. But in order not to affect the original Zimbra that is running fine, I will have to change the IP, Hostname etc. How do I get to the setup page again which appear during installation of Zimbra?

Klug assumed that you would take a backup that's not stored online (per directions, which didn't consider the clone test box angle because they assume you'd be renaming the production itself). He also read your 2nd sentence to mean that you knew it had to be isolated, and were only asking how to do the config rename.
Though what you really meant to say was something like:

I have installed Zimbra in a VM and I want to clone this VM so that I can do some testing. How do I change the IP, Hostname etc without affect the original Zimbra that is running fine?

It happens - especially on a global forum site - wars have been fought over punctuation.
We've put a warning in the documentation, and if you think an additional prompt is needed in the command itself feel free to file an RFE.

Originally Posted by bhwong

8. Persona or External email accounts all insist to send email out using your primary email address. You only get to change the name, not the email.

By default you can only send/recieve as primary & any aliases.

You can manually allow specific addresses:
Admin console gui > Account > Preferences tab> Allow sending email only from these:

zmprov ma user@domain.com +zimbraAllowFromAddress other@external.com

Or if you would like to let them send as any you set:
zmprov mc COSname zimbraAllowAnyFromAddress TRUE
or
zmprov ma user@domain.com zimbraAllowAnyFromAddress TRUE

Pic of it FALSE:


Pic of it TRUE (notice how you can now type in a value):


So it's not an unchecked quantity vote for Bug 29974 - persona/external account from field address verification

Originally Posted by bhwong

The GAL is using LDAP and Active Directory, both are incomplete since most of our employees are from other difference domains which cannot be merged into a single LDAP or AD.

Sound's like your currently using a contact folder shared with everyone@ company wide waiting for: Bug 29697 - External (non-Zimbra) addresses in GAL & Bug 21879 - Add non-Zimbra email addresses to GAL > Bug 14531 - GAL via contacts folders with sorting, browsing and real sync

Originally Posted by bhwong

1. Beside attachment, Outlook can embed images inside the email itself. Zimbra can't do this and will create broken image link when forwarding email with embed images.
ZCS Version: Release 5.0.11_GA_2695.UBUNTU8 FOSS edition

This should be fixed in 5.0.12+: Bug 34539 - inline images wont display in ajax client

Originally Posted by bhwong

2. Some emails appear to be completely empty but the content will appear when you forward it. We found that to force the content to display as text will resolve this, but all text styles will disappear.

They are not using Outlook Conector nor IMAP. They are using Zimbra Desktop Client to view emails. The emails are English. Do you mean non-English will cause problem for Zimbra but not Outlook?

If you are keen to investigate, I can do a screen capture for you.

Provided your trying the latest ZD, yes a pic and the contents of a 'show original' would help / should be added to bugzilla. Be sure to specify languages tried.

[bhwong]

Thanks Mike! Your detailed reply has been very helpful for me. I didn't expect Zimbra to contain this amount of ongoing bug fixes.



3. "zmprov gmi user@domain.com" is able to resolve my issue. It will be great if this information is made available at admin console's account properties for administrator's convenient and speed.

btw, knowing where the mailboxes are kept is useful for backup. But how do we restore it? Simply copying the msg files from the backup alone is not enough to recovery these emails backup to the account mailboxes. What else is required to get it shown up?



5. CLI command is very useful too. It will be great if there is a GUI version that run directly from the Linux System Preference so that the administrator can check and manage everything under a single interface without having to memorized so many commands.

I think Zimbra shared very similar situation as Linux - these software are designed by geeks for geeks. I do hope that the admin and management tools can be redesigned to be more user friendly so that it can be more widely accepted by the mass in order to convert them from Microsoft Windows and Exchange.



> We've put a warning in the documentation, and if you think an additional prompt is needed in the command itself feel free to file an RFE.

I believe additional prompt is a must for any potential harmful execution. This is pretty standard for most OS command that could be potential dangerous. So how do I proceed to file an RFE for this?



8. "Admin console gui > Account > Preferences tab > Allow sending email from any address" is exactly what I have been searching for! Thanks!



> Sound's like your currently using a contact folder shared with everyone@ company wide waiting for: Bug 29697 - External (non-Zimbra) addresses in GAL & Bug 21879 - Add non-Zimbra email addresses to GAL > Bug 14531 - GAL via contacts folders with sorting, browsing and real sync

It's funny that these missing features are considered bugs. But how come these "awaiting bugs" have all their status label as resolved and closed? Does that mean that they have already been fixed and will be available soon in the new version?



> This should be fixed in 5.0.12+: Bug 34539 - inline images wont display in ajax client


Do I have to remove the older version when installing the new version?

btw, I read that 5.0.12 has some serious bug that was fixed with 5.0.13. Thus, is it advisable not to install the latest version until it's more stable?



> Provided your trying the latest ZD, yes a pic and the contents of a 'show original' would help / should be added to bugzilla. Be sure to specify languages tried.

The user is using the AJAX client, not the Desktop version. When I switch the preference back to HTML, the content does not disappear anymore. Weird.



Boon Hong.