Admin Field Guide: Installation & Configuration

Here's some gotchas we hear about from the Zimbra Community when installing and configuring ZCS. Hope this makes for smooth sailing!

Do you have all the install pre-req's ironed out like compat-libstc++, selinux disabled, and port conflicts resolved. Installation will check and fail on any of these condition.
Pre-requirement: For Red Hat Enterprise, Fedora Core and SuSE operating systems, the server must also have the following installed
- NPTL. Native POSIX Thread Library
- Sudo. Superuser, required to delegate admins.
- libidn. For internationalizing domain names in applications (IDNA)
- cURL. A command line tool for transferring files with URL syntax
- fetchmail. A remote-mail retrieval and forwarding utility used for on-demand TCIP/IP links.
- GMP. GNU Multiple-Precision Library.
- compat-libstdcc++-33. Compatibility Standard C++ libraries. ( NOTE: The 32-bit version of the compat-libstdc rpm package is required for both 32-bit or 64-bit servers. )
- For Red Hat Enterprise only: compatlibstdcc++-296

Default port usage:

Overview of MTA and DNS
Make sure the default domain supplied in the DNS wizard is the actual email domain and not the FQDN of the box

Make sure that your client machines satisfy the system requirements for systems specs, operating system, and browser.
Make sure the server machines meet the system requirements for hardware and operating system; size your hardware with growth in mind!
Review the system requirements (PDF)
- Evaluation and testing: Intel/AMD 32-bit CPU 1.5 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 5 GB free disk space for software and logs, mail storage space
- Production: Intel/AMD CPU 32-bit 2.0+ GHz, 2+ GB RAM, 10 GB free disk space for software and logs, mail storage space.
  - RAID-5 not recommended for installations with more than 100 accounts

The license key is provided to you in the Network trial registration email from the Sales Team.
When you do the installation you will automatically be provided a single user license (admin) to enable the install.
From the Admin UI (Global Settings / License / Update License) you can then apply the key to the trial system and provision up to 50 accounts for the life of the trial.
After the trial expires you will no longer be able to add new accounts but the ones you already have provisioned may still work for some time.
Existing customers with license issues can always visit the Support Portal

Make sure the URL connects to the Admin UI using SSL: "https" and to port ":7071" by default.

Here is a good place to start on the Wiki: Installing Network Edition VMware
See also product documentation for release notes, hardware requirements, and more. ZCS 4.5 Beta 1 PDF

In order for Zimbra to use external AD/LDAP for authentication and/or GAL, you need to create a user that can see all user objects in the AD schema.
Configuration of external auth/GAL is by means of an easy wizard in the Admin UI.

In the Admin UI select the Wizard tab, you will find migration tools and documentation

General Product Questions

The Trial is fully featured: you have full access to everything including Outlook Connector, Zimbra Mobile, Clustering, and HSM for 60 days.

All Windows Mobile 5 devices
Symbian S60 and S80 devices like the Nokia E-Series, Palm devices like the Treo 700P sync natively with Zimbra. (Some require additional 3rd party plugins)
Blackberry is supported through a third party partner.

Zimbra uses Red Hat Cluster Suite to provide M+N clustering of our mailbox servers.

Many customers write Zimlets on their own, but you can find a list of Zimbra's publicly announced Zimlets in the Zimbra Gallery
There is a whitepaper available showing how to develop and deploy Zimlets Zimlet Whitepaper