Zimbra Collaboration 8.7.x and Ubuntu OS update corrupts/removes Zimbra installation

[bulletxt]

To avoid this issue, is it better to upgrade Ubuntu to the latest version with Zimbra 8.6 before upgrading Zimbra to 8.7.x?

No, I don't think that changes. But you can try in a VM and see if that helps. Zimbra gets removes on Ubuntu upgrade because zimbra 8.7.x relies on some perl packages that aren't available anymore ubuntu 14.04 (they actually are but have a different package naming). I'm not sure if this is true for 8.6. Give it a try!

[bhwong]

So the recommendation is either not to upgrade Zimbra to 8.7.x for now if we are already on Ubuntu 14 and above? Or retain Ubuntu at version 12 if we want to upgrade to Zimbra 8.7.x?

FYI, I'm currently still running Zimbra 8.0.9 on Ubuntu 10. And have successfully upgrade to Zimbra 8.6 on Ubuntu 12 on my trial VM. However, I met many errors upgrading to Zimbra 8.7.x on Ubuntu 12. Not sure if I should keep upgrading Ubuntu to 14 or 16 before moving on to to upgrade Zimbra to 8.7.x when I already met so much problems with Zimbra 8.7.x on Ubuntu 12.

[bulletxt]

If I were you , I strongly suggest to upgrade to 8.7.x as soon as possible. Remember that you need to install proxy on 8.6 before upgrading to 8.7 ( but this is another topic).

For the OS I suggest you stay on 12.04 for the moment and eventually think of upgrading to 14.04 in a second moment and only once you test everything on a VM (if you follow my tutorial in previous post it should work)

[bhwong]

I was instructed by Zimbra Support to upgrade to 8.6 first instead of 8.7.x directly because the upgrade failed immediately with a direct jump from 8.0.9 to 8.7.x. In fact, 8.7.x is such a major upgrade that I felt it should have been released as 9.0 instead.

I also understand that Ubuntu has stopped the support for Ubuntu 12 and to avoid the instability of Zimbra 8.7.x (new patches are released every few weeks), I could move to Ubuntu 14 or 16 (still under Ubuntu support) with Zimbra 8.6 (very stable with no further patches) and be covered for a few years with a very stable and reliable Zimbra for my users.

Some of my frustration with 8.7.x is not just having to install the proxy (which is a major headache by itself), there are also the memcached to be installed, the HTTPS redirect requirement, even the Kernel of Ubuntu 12 has to be upgraded to at least version 3.11 as well. Not to mention that the full installation file is no longer available for download.

The need to download additional installation file ONLY during upgrading process that take hours to complete mean additional downtime of at least half a day for my email users. This is unacceptable to my management. In order to reduce this long downtime, I will also need to setup another Zimbra repository server just to hold these additional installation file in order to upgrade to 8.7.x. This come to the point that my management is seriously considering migrating out of Zimbra to Microsoft or Google email solution.

[stegbth]

Hi,

i have the same problem on two installations. I will update this first to 8.6.
Next upgrade Ubuntu to 14.04, reinstall 8.6 for Ubuntu 14.04.
Last i will upgrade to 8.7.

Then i will hope Zimbra will fix the bug until 2019 when Ubuntu 14.04 will be end of support.

best regards
Thomas

[bhwong]

I have given up on Ubuntu altogether and engage an expert to deploy a new VM on CentOS and do a rsync of the data over. He said CentOS is more stable than Ubuntu as they don't release new version so frequently. This mean we can upgrade Zimbra many times before we need to upgrade the OS.

[DualBoot]

He said CentOS is more stable than Ubuntu as they don't release new version so frequently.

Hello,

Don't feed the troll ... Ubuntu is also stable in its LTS version. Major differences depend on the purpose to reach
and the habits of the administrator.

Regards,

[joho]

This, unfortunately, also happens with Zimbra NE 8.8.12 when upgrading Ubuntu 14.04.LTS to Ubuntu 16.04.LTS.

We just moved from 8.7.11 to 8.8.12 on Ubuntu 14.04.LTS. Everything went fine. Zimbra 8.8.12 came up as it should, a few minor (expected) issues. They were corrected and everything was fine.

Then we moved on to upgrade to Ubuntu 16.04.LTS since 14.04.LTS is EOL, and since Zimbra considers support for Ubuntu 18.04.LTS to be "beta" (it would sure be nice if Zimbra could speed up certification of mainstream distributions like Ubuntu and their LTS-releases).

After the upgrade to Ubuntu 16.04.LTS, Zimbra was no longer "fully installed", wouldn't start, directories and binaries were missing.

You would think this had been fixed in 8.8.12 ... since it was reported in 8.7...

[joho]

What exactly does this mean

(install.sh)

Unknown Error. It should be impossible to reach this statement.

This is when attempting to recover from a corrupted Zimbra installation due to an OS upgrade (again).

???

[davidkillingsworth]

This is concerning.

I have 3 x Zimbra 8.8.12 Patch 1 servers that I have just upgraded from 8.8.11 Patch 4. They are all running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS for the reasons you have outlined above.

I would like to upgrade them soon due to the EOL of Ubuntu 14.04.

Anyone else have any suggestions on how to progress?