[ale] [meta] List filters

Mon Nov 4 12:19:29 EST 2013

We've been using Zimbra for years (since v5) and have generally been very happy. I mostly use the web interface, and I often use it to access my personal IMAP which has some annoying problems (read flag doesn't get set, filters don't execute), but I do it because I don't want to use 2 email clients. It's definitely something you dedicate a system or VM to--not a package you add to your existing server. We're on v7.2 because we haven't found the time to reinstall on Cent 6 and they never released Zimbra 8 for Cent 5. 

JD, I'm intrigued by your use of Zimbra as an authentication server. I'm actually in the process of trying to replace our LDAP server that we use for Linux authentication. It's been years since I've really fooled with it and I wasn't an expert then. Could I use it for Linux accounts? I believe I need schemas posixAccount and posixGroup and possibly shadowAccount to act as passwd and group. How big a deal do you think that would be or have you tried it? 

Scott 
----- Original Message -----

From: "JD" <jdp at algoloma.com> 
To: ale at ale.org 
Sent: Monday, November 4, 2013 11:58:34 AM 
Subject: Re: [ale] [meta] List filters 

On 11/04/2013 10:02 AM, Michael Trausch wrote: 
> I had looked at Zimbra once upon a time. Seemed... Heavy. Is it worthwhile? 
> Anything I can get from it that I can't do with postfix , dovecot and sieve? 

Zimbra is HEAVY. If there were another Linux solution with enterprise 
calendaring and not butt ugly, I would deploy it. Zimbra wants 1.5G of RAM + 2 
vCPUs for a trivial deployment. It is also stupid-stupid-stupid about /etc/hosts 
and DNS requirements that simply ARE NOT required for a working email system. 
Even with those things, I love it. We are a few releases behind ... trying to 
avoid removed features in the latest versions ... they took out the XMPP server, 
for example. VMware decision. The other things they have removed - lite 
document storage - I do not miss. The lack of a server-side GPG support sucks, 
but client-side GPG works as we expect. Secure email is hard. 

Zimbra talks using standards, so if you have standards compliant clients, all 
will be good. Thunderbird + Lightning works. Creating tag or folder filters 
means a web login to the ajax webclient. I do that about once every 3-6 months. 
The rest of the time, K9-mail and Thunderbird work. 

If you just want an email + imap server, stay with postfix and dovecot on a 384M 
VM. Wouldnt a few postfix rules work with that? 

Zimbra is about centralized, sharable, addressbooks, IM, calendars, email 
folders, with delegation, etc. ON-YOUR-HARDWARE. In 6 yrs, we have not lost 
anything due to Zimbra issues. Once, I did something stupid during an upgrade 
and lost all the incoming email early on a Saturday morning ... the most current 
backup was from 2am. I think it was just spam that was lost. Ooops. ;) As I 
learned more, Zimbra has been rock stable, though the CEO hates email quotas. ;) 
Have not screwed with anything on the server in months .. years , besides 
normal patching every week. That server runs Ubuntu 10.04 still - the last of my 
10.04 servers. 

> Probably goes without saying that I am getting tired of the unreliability of 
> Google's apps services. I can't be then only one noticing that they such. I 
> have four accounts at different domains and I am seriously unhappy with 
> them. 

My issue with google is their complete access to not just emails, but any other 
data plus tracking from analytics, doubleclick, and probably 50 other things I 
do not know about. Too much data held in 1 place is just ... S.C.A.R.Y. 

If you use gmail, think of the privacy invasion your choice forces on everyone 
else to email you. 

> Anyway, will have to check out Zimbra again. 

Zimbra is far from perfect. We were nailed by a leap-second bug in 2012. For 
email, pretty much any client works. For Calendaring, mobile clients are ... er 
... harder to find. I do not have one, but a guy on my Zimbra server uses 
something paid and he is currently happy. There is always the web client for all 
this stuff - 3 different versions 
a) mobile 
b) pure HTML 
c) Ajax - better than Gmail, IMHO. Very slick with lots of javascript addons 
(linkedin, facepook, tweater, VoIP, Skype, etc.) 

For Outlook users, only the paid version of Zimbra supports the expected MAPI 
client crap. 

Catch me at any meeting and I can show the Zimbra web versions ..l. though I use 
thunderbird + lightning. 
http://blog.jdpfu.com/2011/07/22/thunderbird-5-and-lightning-for-enterprise-calendaring-and-email 
- also answers what [enterprise calendaring] means. 

Many other enterprisey Linux systems connect to Zimbra too. I use the Zimbra 
LDAP as the central authentication server for Alfresco, Redmine, MediaWiki, 
vTiger-CRM and a few other things I cant name now. The integration is pretty 
easy if the system supports LDAP. The only system the we do NOT integrate with 
it for users is remote access - for obvious reasons. 

Sorry for the book. Much of this would be better on a blog ... 
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