Zimbra Collaboration Suite M2 Evaluation

Note: The Zimbra Evaluation is over as of 12/13/2006. Please contact IT if another evaluation is necessary.

Background

The Zimbra Collaboration Suite is an open-source application that provides calendaring and e-mail functionality to the small enterprise. Zimbra is compatible with a variety of 3rd-party mail and calendaring clients across platforms (including Outlook), and also provides an AJAX-based web client. It's helpful for OSAF to be able to see Zimbra in action in order to compare and contrast it with the OSAF Chandler/Cosmo/Scooby solutions.

More information on the Zimbra Collaboration Suite can be found in the Zimbra data sheet.

Using Zimbra as an End-User

Obtaining an OSAF Zimbra account

• Send email to the KEI support alias (ask around if you need more info). If you would like to list your contact information, please include phone number, department, office and address. This information will only be available to other users on the server.
• Your new E-mail address and a password will be sent to you. Your Zimbra E-mail address will be in the format username@zimbraeval.osafoundation.org.
• The Zimbra evaluation is not on a production server, and may go down at any time. Please be careful not to use Zimbra for mission-critical communications or data.

Using the Zimbra web interface for the first time

• Visit the Zimbra Web Interface with any web browser.
• Enter your Zimbra E-mail address (username@zimbraeval.osafoundation.org) as the username, then your password.
• Click on the "View or edit your options" button in the left-most column.
• Under the General tab, click the "Change" button to change your password.
• Change the other options to your liking.
• Click on the "Mail," "Show all contacts," or "Go to calendar" icons on the left-hand side of the interface to use those features, or the "Read online help documentation" icon for additional information on using Zimbra.
• Log off via the "Log Off" button.

Using 3rd-party software with Zimbra

Configuring your E-mail client

• All accounts will be enabled to use either POP3 or IMAP for E-mail.
• Use zimbraeval.osafoundation.org as the POP3, IMAP and SMTP server name.
• Use your Zimbra E-mail address (username@zimbraeval.osafoundation.org) as the username.
• TLS authentication is required to connect with Zimbra; click on the "Use SSL" option of your mail client to use it. Zimbra supports TLS on post 993. Note that this server uses a self-signed SSL certificate; that may cause some problems with certain E-mail clients.

Configuring your calendaring client

• To subscribe to a calendar, use the URL http://zimbraeval.osafoundation.org/zimbra/user/your-username/calendar in your client's settings, changing your-username to the first part of your Zimbra E-mail address.
• Use your Zimbra E-mail address (username@zimbraeval.osafoundation.org) as the username.
• The default format on calendars is ICS.

Exporting contact information

• To export contact information, visit the URL http://zimbraeval.osafoundation.org/zimbra/user/your-username/contacts
• Use your Zimbra (username@zimbraeval.osafoundation.org) E-mail address as the username.
• The default format for contact information is CSV.

RSS Feeds

• Please note: this feature may only be available in upcoming versions of Zimbra Collaboration Suite.
• To get an RSS feed of the unread mail in your inbox, use the URL http://zimbraeval.osafoundation.org/zimbra/user/your-username/inbox.rss?query="is:unread" , changing your-username to the first part of your Zimbra E-mail address.
• Use your Zimbra E-mail address (username@zimbraeval.osafoundation.org) as the username.

Special Outlook Considerations

• The MAPI connector which will allow Outlook to connect to Zimbra as though Zimbra were an Exchange server is not open-source, and is not available with this edition of Zimbra Collaboration Suite.
• Exporting and Importing with the PST file-format is also not available in this edition of Zimbra Collaborative Suite.
• Please use the IMAP and CSV export functionality described above when using Outlook.

Forwarding copies of your regular mail to Zimbra

If you're an OSAF staff member, you may wish to set up E-mail forwarding, so that you can receive duplicate copies of your osafoundation.org E-mail on the Zimbra server.

Anti-virus and spam filtering

E-mail is being filtered for virii and spam using ClamAV^? and SpamAssassin^?. Integration with Zimbra are as yet unknown, please share your experiences via the wiki below.

Additional Information

Additional information on features and operation is available using the Help icon (the question mark) in the left-most column of the web interface, or at http://zimbraeval.osafoundation.org/zimbra/help/Zimbra_User_Help.htm .

Using Zimbra as an Administator

Full documentation on Zimbra administration can be found at the Zimbra web site. If you would like information or a demonstration of any of the administrative functions, please send a message to the KEI support alias.

Starting and stopping the server

Zimbra will automatically attempt to start at boot. However, if there are problems with Zimbra (such as when certain services are shown as stopped), it may be beneficial to restart the server. Issue the following commands,

• ssh zimbraeval.osafoundation.org
• sudo su - zimbra
• zmcontrol stop
• zmcontrol start

The 'zmcontrol status' command should now show all services as 'Running'.

Creating or editing an account

• Log into the web-based Zimbra administration console.
• Click on the Account icon in the left-hand column.
• To edit an existing account, double-click that account (or select it with a left-click, then click on Edit).
• To create a new account, click on New -> Account.
• Enter account name, password information, and basic contact information, then click next.
• Select Next to enter additional contact information, account features, basic preferences, aliases and forwarding, or click on Finish immediately to save the new account.

Creating or editing aliases and E-mail forwarding

• Aliases or forwards can be created or added to accounts as part of the account creation or editing functions described above.
• Existing aliases can be edited in the Aliases option in the left-hand column in the administration console after the account has been created.

Creating or editing Distribution Lists

• Log into the web-based Zimbra administration console.
• Click on the Distribution Lists icon in the left-hand column.
• To edit an existing distribution list, double-click that account (or select it with a left-click, then click on Edit).
• To create a new distribution list, click on New -> Distribution List.
• Enter the list name, a description, and add members using the search or address entry list on the right.
• Click on Save to finish.

Class of service for accounts

• A class of service allows new accounts to be automatically configured with a certain set of preferences and settings
• A default class of service is created at server installation
• New classes of service can be set up by clicking on the Class of Service icon in the left-hand column, and selecting New. After setting the appropriate preferences and settings, click on Save.

Additional administrative functions to be discussed

• Multiple Zimbra servers
• The Migration Wizard
• Global server settings
• Server status and statistics

Evaluation notes

Reporting experiences, impressions or bugs

Please use the Wiki edit button to report your experiences below.

Installation and configuration experiences

• Network version currently requires RedHat Enterprise Linux. Open Source version officially supports RHEL and Fedora Core 3. Fedora Core 4 is supported with forum-published tweaks.
• Zimbra is very sensitive to the hostname structure, and would report various connection errors until all fully-qualified domain issues were resolved.
• Installation instructions did not account for all of the dependencies necessary for the server to run on Fedora Core 3. Some were reported in the logs (Postfix missing library errors), but some were not (anavisd -- run anavisd debug from a shell for information). Because not all missing dependencies were reported, the anti-virus and mta functions were listed as being stopped.
• Because of the missing dependencies, anavisd did not launch with Zimbra daemon startup.
• RSS feeds of inbox users returned the error "not yet implemented" from Tomcat.

Usage experiences

• Attachments in Firefox 1.5 cause browser formatting issues and do not complete. (DaveCowen)
• Spell check is unavailable (DaveCowen)