Migrating Zimbra (from 8.6.0 to 8.8.7) - Leveraging Zextras “NG” modules

[L. Mark Stone]

Regarding migration utility vs suite - probably just based on what i was reading at the time - i don't think i had seen the wiki article or this thread - just the howtos on zextras site. If i don't get any satisfaction from support, i may try uninstall migration utility and installing the suite on the source server. Does it give you the option of just installing the migration stuff during installation or does it try to install the whole suite? I will post back if I learn anything useful or figure it out.

It installs the whole suite. Not recalling why at the moment, but definitely recalling Zimbra Support saying the whole suite was needed for some reason.

[MolallaComm]

I uninstalled the zextras migration utility and installed the legacy suite as you guys recommended but got the same behavior - still no luck restoring in 8.8.8. Just to convince myself that I did see it working in 8.8.7, I spun up a VM with 8.8.7 and tried it with mixed results. We are using ZAD (Zimbra Archiving and Discovery) and I think that may be throwing a wrench in things - 8.8.7 import wizard would see all the domains, but only let me pick the accounts from domain.com - not domain.com.archive - it pulled over the selected accounts fine - but I need it to pull the corresponding archive accounts also. All that said, I've come to the conclusion that the 8.8.8 import wizard is broken completely (although it may be related to ZAD) and 8.8.7 kind of works, but apparently doesn't handle ZAD which will be a deal breaker for me using this approach.

That said, in general I think the NG backup will be great for day to day operations and for migrating from an old server to a new one once they iron all the kinks out - because it allows you to do the migration mostly online in stages assuming you have multiple domains to migrate and it also allows you to dry run the migration for testing purposes, etc. which is a big plus over the rsync method that is all or nothing and requires a fair amount offline time in the off hours.

Mr. Stone - how did your 8.8.8 migration go - I assume you or your client isn't using ZAD?

[L. Mark Stone]

Mr. Stone - how did your 8.8.8 migration go - I assume you or your client isn't using ZAD?

The first test import hung on one mailbox; we did some tidying up on the source server, ran a second export and will test the import again over the weekend.

In the interim, we did a successful import of all of the other mailboxes by listing them all on the commandline that kicked off the restore.

Over the weekend and early next week several folks will kick the tires and then we'll know for sure.

And no, I don't believe any of the source mailboxes are Zimbra A&D mailboxes. But, not sure how that would throw a wrench into the restore?

All the best,
Mark

[MolallaComm]

If i do "zxsuite backup getAvailableAccounts" on the source server - every account except the .archive accounts show up so I'm thinking ZAD is not currently supported by zextras or backup ng unfortunately. I've opened a ticket with support which thus far seems to be way behind the curve on the zextras integration in 8.8 and posted a question into the zextras forum - but at the moment i'm thinking rsyncing online to get most of it - then rsyncing again offline to get the final changes - install 8.6.0 on the new 16.04 server - then upgrade to 8.8.8 hopefully - but what a PITA compared to the migration wizard if it worked!

[L. Mark Stone]

If i do "zxsuite backup getAvailableAccounts" on the source server - every account except the .archive accounts show up so I'm thinking ZAD is not currently supported by zextras or backup ng unfortunately. I've opened a ticket with support which thus far seems to be way behind the curve on the zextras integration in 8.8 and posted a question into the zextras forum - but at the moment i'm thinking rsyncing online to get most of it - then rsyncing again offline to get the final changes - install 8.6.0 on the new 16.04 server - then upgrade to 8.8.8 hopefully - but what a PITA compared to the migration wizard if it worked!

I'll ask about that on the Zeta Alliance call this coming week, but even so, you could:

- On the new server manually create the Archive mailbox and confirm functionality
- Do the cutover
- On the old server, export the archive mailbox using the tgz method
- On the new server, import the tgz file to the archive mailbox

Hope that helps,
Mark