Integration of ZCS into existing network

[andreash]

Hi!

I'm running a network with 3 Linux servers and about 50 users and I'm looking into ZCS as a groupware product.

The current setup has:
* OpenLDAP as central account DB (for samba, mailserver, RADIUS, intranet, ...)
* Samba as fileserver, printerserver, PDC
* Sendmail with Spam and Virus filters, distributed on two servers (external mail-relay, internal mail server)
* Cyrus IMAP server with shared folders, various sieve filter scripts, ...
* Project-based mail-addresses with direct delivery into sub-mailboxes
* Currently about 120GB of mails in the Cyrus DB
* Web-based administration software (GOsa)
* PostgreSQL database
* OpenGroupware
* Apache for several intranet web applications

I'm now asking myself how ZCS would fit into this setup. It looks like ZCS brings it's own LDAP server and directory structure, has it's own MTA and mail database etc. so I would have to kill OpenLDAP, Cyrus IMAP, and all the setup, configuration and utilities grown in the past couple of years. Am I correct?

How intrusive would ZCS then be? What about the user account data (including Samba MTA) in the LDAP database? What about the directory structure itself (where the samba configuration depends on, for instance)?
What about the Sieve filter scripts and special mail delivery configurations?
What about addresses, calendar, projects and tasks currently stored in the OpenGroupware database?

So these are a lot of questions I'm currently thinking about and I don't know if I'd like the answers.

Has anyone already accomplished a similar transition?
I'm new to ZCS and as you can see from the setup above I'm rather "old-scool" and used to modular, separate servers like Sendmail, Cyrus IMAP server, OpenLDAP, Apache, etc.
Any comments from people who have done such a migration are appreciated!

Thanks!

- andreas

[fcash]

Originally Posted by andreash

I'm running a network with 3 Linux servers and about 50 users and I'm looking into ZCS as a groupware product.

The current setup has:
* OpenLDAP as central account DB (for samba, mailserver, RADIUS, intranet, ...)
* Samba as fileserver, printerserver, PDC
* Sendmail with Spam and Virus filters, distributed on two servers (external mail-relay, internal mail server)
* Cyrus IMAP server with shared folders, various sieve filter scripts, ...
* Project-based mail-addresses with direct delivery into sub-mailboxes
* Currently about 120GB of mails in the Cyrus DB
* Web-based administration software (GOsa)
* PostgreSQL database
* OpenGroupware
* Apache for several intranet web applications

I'm now asking myself how ZCS would fit into this setup. It looks like ZCS brings it's own LDAP server and directory structure, has it's own MTA and mail database etc. so I would have to kill OpenLDAP, Cyrus IMAP, and all the setup, configuration and utilities grown in the past couple of years. Am I correct?

Nope. Zimbra can be configured to authenticate against an external LDAP server, and to query an external LDAP server as part of the Global Address List (GAL). Thus, you can continue to use your existing OpenLDAP server as a central authentication server.

Same for SMTP services and spam filtering. You can continue to use your sendmail setup in front of the Zimbra server. We do this (although with Postfix) and have disabled all spam/av features in Zimbra.

Zimbra would replace the Cyrus and OpenGroupware setups, though. Zimbra supports server-side filtering via Sieve, shared folders, non-user accounts, shared calendars, resource calendars, etc.

Has anyone already accomplished a similar transition?
I'm new to ZCS and as you can see from the setup above I'm rather "old-scool" and used to modular, separate servers like Sendmail, Cyrus IMAP server, OpenLDAP, Apache, etc.

Zimbra is also modular (internally), and uses Apache, OpenLDAP, MySQL, Postfix, DSpam, SpamAssassin, and more internally. I believe the open-source version even uses Cyrus IMAP. The difference is that Zimbra adds a nice, GUI, user-friendly wrapper around all that, providing a singular look-n-feel to all the pieces.

Migrating e-mail is done via imapsync at the CLI. Migrating calendars is done via iCal export/import. Migrating address books is done via either LDIF or CSV export/import.

The hardest part would be migrating the OpenGroupware stuff, but that can be done. It all depends on what is stored in OGW.

The migration would not be impossible, but would also not be a 2 hour job.