ova deployment fails to start - LDAP and Mailbox DEAD

[pete irvine]

After the installation (Followed post to get around the DHCP problem during install) the web console says : Zimbra services are not available.
Please verify that all services are running on the status tab.

Status Tab says all running except Mailbox and LDAP.

Can not login to linux distro as root cause do not know the password.

Help Please.

-Update-
No communication - tried downloading the OVF.ZIP package - reported as corrupt upon unzipping.

In the absence of any assistance now looking for another product that WILL install as the manual says it does.
Very sad - The ZCS client looks great - pity the server does not function as a mail server - very disappointing.
I hope that vmware ownership improves the quality control.

Trying 7.0 Beta Just in case the installation routine is better written. I really want to use Zimbra - just want it to work.

Well - V 7 installs without the drama of v6 and it actually starts correctly - the problems are the subject of the next post.........

[pete irvine]

Version seven appliance is not a functioning product until you can install it and it works !

Need to have some Quality control and less Bullsh*t that the spin doctors spout included as "documentation"

[pete irvine]

Managed to make it work. - the system statistics and metrics refuse to start but the server runs - created accounts and now about to test with a flow of mail messages.
Not bad - got it going in 7 days with no help and about 75 hours of trying allsorts of different things.

[pete irvine]

Well - went back into the Administration Web Console and got the message
"/service/preauth. Reason:
system failure: ZimbraLdapContext"

Was working and adding users now not able to access. Trying a reboot of the server..........

[pete irvine]

Shutdown and restart does not solve.
I have attached the diagnostics.
Read the logs but do not have enough knowledge to take this any further.
Assistance appreciated.

Pity it was running and looked as I hoped it would - easy to use.

Thanx

Pete

[pete irvine]

Re-Installing - using v6 - setup with no network interface. Add Interface after install has run (Found in a post) to get the IP Address correct. 2gb Ram, 1 processor, 200gb disk on vmware ESX 4.1.
Suggestions please.

[pete irvine]

Well I repeated the install but did not allocate any extra disk to the installation. Appliance completely stable - so far will update this afternoon.

[pete irvine]

Still working - has not stopped once. Seems the dhcp reservation and not allocating the extra disk space solved the problem.

To summerise :
1. Import the vm from ova
2. Set the MAC address inside the vm settings
3. Put the reservation in DHCP
3.1 - Do not forget to add the Gateway, DNS server, Time, NTP etc into your DHCP settings !
4. Setup your mail.(Domain) in the dns - pointing to the new ip address in DHCP.
5. Start the VM
6. Open a console in vSphere
7. Answer the questions
8. Once the Console prompts you
- open a web browser pointing to https:\\<Ip Address>:5480
- there will be certificate errors to be ignored
At this point the installer runs in the web admin. Takes a while.
Once finished make sure that you can stop and successfully restart all of the services.
Go to the Zimbra Administration Tab and start creating accounts.

*Note* To backup using Vmware you will need a vCentre Server Running

[pete irvine]

Just added 10gb of new disk. Took 5 mins to startup.
When I opened the console the stats service was not running. Stopped and restarted the VM from command line - all was well on second startup.

I suspect that if you add 100's of gb of space at once the startup could take several hours - probibly the reason for the dramas I was having with this product.

Added second processor to improve performance - worked.

Going to put it on an ssd as the disk io appears to be the performance bottle neck.

Currently hosting 5 users with 11.5 GB of mail.