DJ & M's log

Zimbra Appliance upgrade

Nearly one year has past using Zimbra 8, so I decided it was time to upgrade the appliance from version 8.0.0_GA_5434 to the latest and greatest 8.0.4_GA_5737 by doing a clean install on a brand new VirtualBox vm. Call me crazy, but I’m a fan of clean installs. I like the smell of clean and it makes it mean again.

I chose the OVA ZCA package on the Zimbra website. This is just a GNU tar package, so I untarred it and imported the ovf file using the following:

VBoxManage import zca-8.0.4.0-1151542_OVF10.ovf \ –vsys 0 –vmname “zca804” \ –vsys 0 –eula accept \ –vsys 0 –cpus 1 \ –vsys 0 –unit 11 –ignore \ –vsys 0 –unit 14 –disk /data/virtualbox/vms/zca804/zca-8.0.4.0-1151542-backup.vmdk \ –vsys 0 –unit 15 –disk /data/virtualbox/vms/zca804/zca-8.0.4.0-1151542-data.vmdk \ –vsys 0 –unit 16 –disk /data/virtualbox/vms/zca804/zca-8.0.4.0-1151542-db.vmdk \ –vsys 0 –unit 17 –disk /data/virtualbox/vms/zca804/zca-8.0.4.0-1151542-index.vmdk \ –vsys 0 –unit 18 –disk /data/virtualbox/vms/zca804/zca-8.0.4.0-1151542-log.vmdk \ –vsys 0 –unit 19 –disk /data/virtualbox/vms/zca804/zca-8.0.4.0-1151542-redolog.vmdk \ –vsys 0 –unit 20 –disk /data/virtualbox/vms/zca804/zca-8.0.4.0-1151542-store.vmdk \ –vsys 0 –unit 21 –disk /data/virtualbox/vms/zca804/zca-8.0.4.0-1151542-system.vmdk \ –vsys 0 –unit 22 –disk /data/virtualbox/vms/zca804/zca-8.0.4.0-1151542-zimbra.vmdk VBoxManage modifyvm zca804 \ –memory 3072 \ –vrde on \ –vrdeauthtype null \ –vrdeport 3392

To summarize:

I did the single-node install. When asked for the hostname, be sure to enter the FQDN.

Export

export DIR=/tmp/export mkdir $DIR zimbra@server:~$ for i in user1 user2; do /opt/zimbra/bin/zmmailbox -z -m $i@vleeuwen.net getRestURL “//?fmt=tgz” > “${DIR}/${i}.tgz”; done

Recreate the accounts on the new system. I used the provisioning command ‘zmprov ca’ and ‘zmprov ma’.

Import

zimbra@server:~$ /opt/zimbra/bin/zmmailbox -z -m user1@vleeuwen.net postRestURL “//?fmt=tgz&resolve=reset” /tmp/user1.tgz

I ran into two issues:

  • Time; make sure to sync the time (ntpdate) when dealing with certificates
  • DNS; check if all DNS names you are using are registered and point to the correct mail server

My specs:

  • Debian 7.1 (Wheezy)
  • VirtualBox 4.2.18-88780
  • Zimbra Appliance (zca-8.0.4.0-1151542_OVF10.ova)

Hope to enjoy this release for yet another year.