How to bind Zimbra to a specific IP? Run Apache on the same server

So, something that came out of a comments posting from another article – how to integrate Z-Push – was the question ‘Is it possible to run Apache on the same server?’  The answer is yes, providing you have multiple IP’s – there is another way to proxy the requests but im not doing to discuss that here.  So, if you want to bind the web GUI to a specific IP, use the following.  This does not bind Postfix to only 1 IP, i see no need for that personally.

This method should work on all versions of Zimbra that utilise Jetty as the web server, that should be Zimbra version 5.x and above; including 6.x.  Edit the following files:

  1. /opt/zimbra/mailboxd/etc/jetty.xml.in

    2. <Set name=”Host”>your-ip-address</Set>

    Add the above entry to the HTTP connector, or HTTPS – depending which you are using, it should look like the below:

    <!– =========================================================== –>
    <!– Set connectors                                              –>
    <!– =========================================================== –>

    <!– user services connector, no SSL –>
    <!– HTTPBEGIN
    <Call name=”addConnector”>
    <Arg>
    <New id=”http”>
    <Set name=”port”><SystemProperty name=”jetty.port” default=”%%zimbraMailPort%%”/></Set>
    <Set name=”maxIdleTime”>30000</Set>
    <Set name=”lowResourceMaxIdleTime”>1000</Set>
    <Set name=”Acceptors”>2</Set>
    <Set name=”confidentialPort”>%%zimbraMailSSLPort%%</Set>
    <Set name=”useDirectBuffers”>%%zimbraMailUseDirectBuffers%%</Set>
    <Set name=”Host”>your-ip-address</Set>
    </New>
    </Arg>
    </Call>
    HTTPEND –>

    <!– user services connector, SSL –>
    <!– HTTPSBEGIN –>
    <Call name=”addConnector”>
    <Arg>
    <New id=”ssl”>
    <Set name=”Port”>%%zimbraMailSSLPort%%</Set>
    <Set name=”useDirectBuffers”>%%zimbraMailUseDirectBuffers%%</Set>
    <Set name=”maxIdleTime”>30000</Set>
    <Set name=”lowResourceMaxIdleTime”>1000</Set>
    <Set name=”Acceptors”>2</Set>
    <Set name=”keystore”><SystemProperty name=”jetty.home” default=”.”/>/etc/keystore</Set>
    <Set name=”password”>@@mailboxd_keystore_password@@</Set>
    <Set name=”KeyPassword”>@@mailboxd_keystore_password@@</Set>
    <Set name=”ExcludeCipherSuites”>
    <Array type=”java.lang.String”>
    %%zimbraSSLExcludeCipherSuitesXML%%
    </Array>
    </Set>
    <Set name=”Host”>your-ip-address</Set>
    </New>
    </Arg>
    </Call>
    <!– HTTPSEND –>

  2. /opt/zimbra/mailboxd/etc/zimbra.web.xml.in

    3. Uncomment the SOAP URL, so it changes from this:

    <!– =============
    <context-param>
    <param-name>zimbra.soap.url</param-name>
    <param-value>http://localhost:7070/service/soap</param-value>
    </context-param>
    –>

    To the following, notice the :7070 disappears and is instead replaced by your IP – note change HTTP to HTTPS if youre using that instead:

    <context-param>
    <param-name>zimbra.soap.url</param-name>
    <param-value>https://your-ip-address/service/soap</param-value>
    </context-param>

  3. /opt/zimbra/mailboxd/etc/zimbraAdmin.web.xml.in

    4. Now  we need to do the same for the above file, uncomment the SOAP URL and modify to HTTP or HTTPS, removing port 7070:

    <!– =============
    <context-param>
    <param-name>zimbra.soap.url</param-name>
    <param-value>http://localhost:7070/service/soap</param-value>
    </context-param>
    –>

    To this:

    <context-param>
    <param-name>zimbra.soap.url</param-name>
    <param-value>https://your-server-ip/service/soap</param-value>
    </context-param>

  4. su – zimbra
  5. zmcontrol stop; zmcontrol start

I obviously strongly recommend you backup, by copying, all the files BEFORE you modify them – making roll back easy.  Im not currently using this method, as i moved my web server to a separate box – but it was from my notes, so should work!  Let me know if you have any issues and ill do my best to help….

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2010
02/19
POSTED BY
iMx
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Apache
Zimbra
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Push email, contacts and calendar with Zimbra 6 Opensource & Z-Push – ActiveSync

As a few of you may have realised, im a great fan of Zimbra however one real short coming is the lack of ability to sync contacts and for real time push email – instead having hack around with Funambol and/or rely on IMAP/POP for email.  In the Opensource edition anyway.

For me, i just could not justify the expense of the Network Edition license for ActiveSync and back-up – so i set about finding opensource equivalents to allow me to get the functionality i required.  Now whilst this may not scale well for larger deployments, for me it does what i need!  If Zimbra offered a more sensible licensing model, that would make Network Edition plausible for 5 users (rather than the 25 user minimum) then i would go down this route…..as it stands they dont, so one of the beauties of opensource software is being able to find alternatives for free!

Another solution for email is to use Zarafa, however its not quite an all in one solution like Zimbra and i have to confess that the webmail is too much like ‘Outlook’ for me!  However, it does have one thing going for it and thats the inclusion of ‘Z-Push’.  Z-Push is a PHP based opensource ActiveSync solution – ie a way to sync systems other than Exchange with Windows Mobile, Apple iPhone, Android etc.  In this case, we’re going to use Z-Push with a specific Zimbra backend plugin to enable push email and syncing of calendar and contacts to an iPhone – without stumping for the Zimbra Network Edition license cost.

You can read more about Z-Push here:

http://z-push.sourceforge.net/soswp/

The above combined with the below, and an Apache server, is all we need:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/zimbrabackend/

So first we need to download Z-Push to our web root, im doing this via an SSH session – utilising version 1.3 RC2 of Z-Push:

billabong:/home/sync/public_html# wget http://download.berlios.de/z-push/z-push-1.3RC2.tar.gz
–2010-02-17 15:08:33–  http://download.berlios.de/z-push/z-push-1.3RC2.tar.gz
Resolving download.berlios.de… 195.37.77.141
Connecting to download.berlios.de|195.37.77.141|:80… connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response… 200 OK
Length: 106534 (104K) [application/x-download]
Saving to: `z-push-1.3RC2.tar.gz’

100%[======================================>] 106,534     –.-K/s   in 0.1s

2010-02-17 15:08:34 (813 KB/s) – `z-push-1.3RC2.tar.gz’ saved [106534/106534]

billabong:/home/sync/public_html#

Now we unzip/untar the package

billabong:/home/sync/public_html# tar zxvf z-push-1.3RC2.tar.gz
z-push/
z-push/state/
z-push/include/
z-push/include/z_RFC822.php
z-push/include/mimeDecode.php
z-push/include/utils.php
z-push/include/z_ical.php
z-push/include/z_tnef.php
z-push/backend/
z-push/backend/diffbackend.php
z-push/backend/vcarddir.php
z-push/backend/ics.php
z-push/backend/maildir.php
z-push/backend/imap.php
z-push/backend/backend.php
z-push/wbxml.php
z-push/memimporter.php
z-push/LICENSE
z-push/zpushdefs.php
z-push/zpushdtd.php
z-push/proto.php
z-push/config.php
z-push/statemachine.php
z-push/index.php
z-push/streamer.php
z-push/INSTALL
z-push/version.php
z-push/streamimporter.php
z-push/compat.php
z-push/request.php
z-push/debug.php
billabong:/home/sync/public_html#

Next we set permissions 777 for the ’state’ directory, so that the web server can write files – note you could restrict this further if you so desire, ie so that just the user that Apache runs as can write to it:

billabong:/home/sync/public_html# chmod 777 z-push/state
billabong:/home/sync/public_html#

Now we need to edit the Apache configuration , to add an alias:

Alias /Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync /home/site/public_html/z-push/index.php

This will depend on the version of Apache that youre using, for me its Apache2 – the configuration file for my virtual host is stored at /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/

Add the above line, customising as you need, to the correct virtual host configuration file for which you wish to enable Z-Push – if you do not have access to your Apache config then this will not work! Because i want to use this over HTTPS, i need to make sure i add it to the correct virtual host, ie with the SSLEngine on and running on port 443:

<VirtualHost xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:443>
SuexecUserGroup “#1003″ “#1004″
ServerName sync.fubar.com
Alias /Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync /home/sync/public_html/z-push/index.php
DocumentRoot /home/sync/public_html

….

SSLEngine on

….

</VirtualHost>

We now have the basics of Z-Push set up, however we dont yet have it connecting to Zimbra’s SOAP interface to retrieve email, contacts and calendar entries.  This is where the Z-Push Zimbra Backend comes in…

Next we go back to the directory to where we downloaded and extracted Z-Push to, inside this directory is another called ‘backend’:

billabong:/etc/apache2/sites-enabled# cd /home/sync/public_html/z-push
billabong:/home/sync/public_html/z-push# ls
backend     include    memimporter.php    statemachine.php    wbxml.php
compat.php  index.php  proto.php    streamer.php        zpushdefs.php
config.php  INSTALL    request.php    streamimporter.php  zpushdtd.php
debug.php   LICENSE    state        version.php
billabong:/home/sync/public_html/z-push# cd backend/
billabong:/home/sync/public_html/z-push/backend# ls
backend.php  diffbackend.php  ics.php  imap.php  maildir.php  vcarddir.php

These are the different options we have to interface with Z-Push, as you can see there is currently no Zimbra.  Lets fix that – note at time of writing revision 18 didnt work for me, revision 16 however does – checking out from subversion/svn you will get the latest by default, however from SourceForge you can also just download specific versions.  Clicking on the revision number, ie 16, from the following URL http://sourceforge.net/projects/zimbrabackend/develop, allows you to download just that version.  Then click on ‘zimbra.php’, there will then be a ‘download’ link, right click and copy and then use wget with the URL copied to your clip board.  We then rename the downloaded file to be just ‘zimbra.php’, note this MUST exist in the backend directory inside Z-Push:

billabong:/home/sync/public_html/z-push/backend# wget “http://zimbrabackend.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/zimbrabackend/zimbra.php?revision=16&pathrev=16″
–2010-02-17 15:33:15–  http://zimbrabackend.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/zimbrabackend/zimbra.php?revision=16&pathrev=16
Resolving zimbrabackend.svn.sourceforge.net… 216.34.181.65
Connecting to zimbrabackend.svn.sourceforge.net|216.34.181.65|:80… connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response… 200 OK
Length: unspecified [text/plain]
Saving to: `zimbra.php?revision=16&pathrev=16′

[   <=>                                 ] 110,039      267K/s   in 0.4s

2010-02-17 15:33:16 (267 KB/s) – `zimbra.php?revision=16&pathrev=16′ saved [110039]

billabong:/home/sync/public_html/z-push/backend# mv zimbra.php\?revision\=16\&pathrev\=16 zimbra.php
billabong:/home/sync/public_html/z-push/backend# ls
backend.php     ics.php   maildir.php     zimbra.php
diffbackend.php  imap.php  vcarddir.php
billabong:/home/sync/public_html/z-push/backend#

So now we have the required files, we just need to configure Z-Push with the Zimbra backend – edit the config.php file in the z-push root directory and add the following lines:

define(‘ZIMBRA_URL’, ‘https://URL-TO-ZIMBRA’);
define(‘ZIMBRA_SYNC_CONTACT_PICTURES’, true);
define(‘ZIMBRA_VIRTUAL_CONTACTS’,true);
define(‘ZIMBRA_VIRTUAL_APPOINTMENTS’,true);
define(‘ZIMBRA_VIRTUAL_TASKS’,true);
define(‘ZIMBRA_IGNORE_EMAILED_CONTACTS’,true);
define(‘ZIMBRA_HTML’,true);

Note im using HTTPS to connect to Zimbra, you may need to modify this to HTTP if required.  Then in the same config.php file, edit the variable to make Z-Push use the Zimbra backend:

$BACKEND_PROVIDER = “BackendZimbra”;

That should be pretty much it…fire up your iPhone, or which ever device you wish to use!  Note, you dont need to enter a ‘domain’ in the mobile configuration, just leave that blank.

A couple of gotcha’s i came across:

  • Folder names cannot have .’s in, this will break the sync for further email folders and/or contacts/calendar.
  • One or two folders for some reason did not display on the mobile device, creating a new folder copying the mail over and then renaming the folder worked fine for me
  • When adding calendar/contacts entries from the phone, these are synced to Zimbra and then back down again – creating a duplication.  This was/should be fixed in Zimbra backend revision 18, however i had some problems with that release!
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2010
02/18
POSTED BY
iMx
CATEGORY
ActiveSync
Push Email
Z-Push
Zimbra
iPhone
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How to check the status of the Bayesian DB in Zimbra

Ok, so i was curious to know what information i had in my SpamAssasin bayes DB, the below command will output the goodness:

root@mambo:~# su - zimbra
zimbra@mambo:~$ /opt/zimbra/libexec/sa-learn --dbpath /opt/zimbra/data/amavisd/.spamassassin --dump magic
netset: cannot include 127.0.0.0/8 as it has already been included
0.000          0          3          0  non-token data: bayes db version
0.000          0      74443          0  non-token data: nspam
0.000          0       4428          0  non-token data: nham
0.000          0     115928          0  non-token data: ntokens
0.000          0 1262691358          0  non-token data: oldest atime
0.000          0 1265460421          0  non-token data: newest atime
0.000          0 1265460998          0  non-token data: last journal sync atime
0.000          0 1265461001          0  non-token data: last expiry atime
0.000          0    2764800          0  non-token data: last expire atime delta
0.000          0      58752          0  non-token data: last expire reduction count

If for any reason you want to reset the bayes DB and start afresh, you just need to remove/move the .spamassassin folder, and then restart Zimbra.  Note im using Zimbra Open Source Edition 6.0.5.

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2010
02/06
POSTED BY
iMx
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SpamAssassin
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Enabling DSpam in Zimbra 6 Open Source Edition

There have been some reported issues with DSpam and Zimbra, prior to 6.0.5, so after some playing a while ago i disabled it – which is the default anyway.  So i only recommend you enable this in version 6.0.5 and above, thats not to say the developers wont break it again at some point in the future!

 root@mambo:~# su - zimbra
 zimbra@mambo:~$ zmlocalconfig -e amavis_dspam_enabled=enable
 zimbra@mambo:~$ zmcontrol stop; zmcontrol start

In theory a full Zimbra restart isnt required, but it cant hurt – you could just do the following i believe:

 zimbra@mambo:~$ zmamavisdctl restart

After i enabled DSpam i was seeing the following in my mail headers and consequently all mail was being tagged as spam:

 X-DSPAM-Result: Spam
 X-DSPAM-Class: Spam
 X-DSPAM-Confidence: 0.99
 X-DSPAM-Probability: 1.0000
 X-DSPAM-Signature: N/A
 X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at xxxxxxxxx
 X-Spam-Flag: YES
 X-Spam-Score: 7.658
 X-Spam-Level: *******
 X-Spam-Status: Yes, score=7.658 tagged_above=-10 required=3.4
 tests=[AWL=0.258, BAYES_00=-2.599, SPF_PASS=-0.001, DSPAM:Spam=10.000]
 autolearn=ham

Suspecting an issue with the DSpam DB, im not sure if this was left over from my previous playing or whether its like this out of the box, but clearing the DB solved the issue:

 root@mambo:~# rm -rf /opt/zimbra/data/dspam/data/z/i/zimbra/
 root@mambo:~# su - zimbra
 zimbra@mambo:~$ zmcontrol stop; zmcontrol start
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2010
02/06
POSTED BY
iMx
CATEGORY
DSpam
Zimbra
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Backing up Zimbra 6 Open Source Edition

A while ago i discovered a neat little script for backing up Zimbra 6 Open Source Edition, after finally getting cold feet over the balls of steel attitude of ‘meh, i dont need to back it up i dont really have anything that important on it’.  The link to said script is below:

http://www.osoffice.de/downloads/viewcategory-7.html

The features as listed on the homepage for the script:

  • Secure, Archives with strong encryption
  • Archive compression
  • Optional Off-site copying of archives
  • MD5 checksums for integrity checks
  • Weekly backup rotation – 1 Full & 6 Diff’s per rotation
  • Email report on Full backup
  • Email notification on errors
  • Backup file lists
  • Installer & Setup option for quick deployment

For me this pretty much ticks all the boxes, compression and encryption, md5 checksums, also including full and diff backups for optimal usage of space and bandwidth when transferring offsite and to top it all off nice little emails when things go wrong!

More details on usage to follow, including the restore procedure!

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2010
02/06
POSTED BY
iMx
CATEGORY
Backup
Debian
Ubuntu
Zimbra
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Zimbra Briefcase as WebDAV – xmarks sync

I went to all the hassle of setting up a WebDAV server with Apache, after hacking Zimbra to only bind to 1 IP – seems crazy to me that Zimbra binds to all available IP’s with no easy option to tell it not to – only to discover i could have infact just mounted the Zimbra Briefcase.

Below are the screenshots required to set it up using xmarks (previously Foxmarks), however you can use the URL to mount it as a WebDAV share with which ever application you choose. Note im using HTTPS exclusively, so if youre only using HTTP change the URL as appropriate.

First set your username and password to that of your Zimbra account, note the format of the username – your full email address:

Next setup the URL to point to your Zimbra Briefcase, im using HTTPS here you may need to change if thats not enabled on your Zimbra server – although quite frankly it should be the only option enabled.  The format of the URL includes your Zimbra webmail address with the username in the following format ‘user.name%40domain.com’ – not %40 replaces the @.

N.B. click the images for a bigger image.

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2010
02/06
POSTED BY
iMx
CATEGORY
Firefox
Foxmarks
Zimbra
xmarks
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VMware vSphere Client on VMware Server 2

I’ve played around with VMware a fair bit and whilst there is no doubt that ESX and ESXi have some impressive features, it was not really plausible for me for a few reasons:

  • My server has 2 disks, but no hardware RAID.  Running without RAID is not really an option, i tried to think of a few ways around this – installing ESXi to both drives and then scripting snapshots to copy over to the non-active datastore drive.  THis would in theory allow me to reboot on the other drive and then rebuild/reimport the VM.  The problem being, my host allows clients to rebuild their server through their portal, however you cannot specify to leave the 2nd drive untouched – so as/when i needed to reinstall the 1st drive it would wipe out the 2nd ;)
  • No software firewall or ACLs on ESXi, leave my host wide open on port 22, 443 and any others it cared to open.  Yes i could try moving the service console to a private network connected via a Linux VM then tunnel, if the VM died id have to reboot the entire server.
  • I wanted to run OpenVPN on the host, installation of packages/programs such as this in ESXi is not possible.

So, i settled on VMware Server 2.  The main problem i see with this product, from my point of view, is the web management console/gui – it sucks.  It would crash and hang and force me to clear browser cache, even then not working when i needed it most.  So i set about seeing whether or not i could use the vSphere Client to connect to VMware Server – incidentally VMware Server 1 got it right with a proper software client, so we seem to be going backwards here in some regards!  To my horror, and after trying myself, it didnt seem it was possible!  Or was it…

During my Google searching i came across this:

http://technodrone.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-to-manage-vmware-server-20x.html

One of the comments, by a guy called Tiddler, seemed to offer some hope of a way to get this to work.

I had the same issue with this that Cenk Kulacoglu had. It turns out that on a fresh install, the VI Client (or vSphere Client) is missing the necessary v2.5 DLLs to talk to VMware server 2.0.

This files need to be extracted to C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Virtual Infrastructure Client or C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Infrastructure\Virtual Infrastructure Client if 64-bit. Inside of that folder you’ll notice there is already a 4.0 folder. After extracting this rar to the previously mentioned location, you’ll notice a 2.5 folder as well. This should fix anyone with the issue of the Server complaining you need to download an “update”.

The files you need a located here http://www.slashdevslashnull.com/wp-content/uploads/2.5.rar

Enjoy!

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2010
02/04
POSTED BY
iMx
CATEGORY
VMware
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