<html><head><style type='text/css'>p { margin: 0; }</style></head><body><div style='font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000'><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Malte,</div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">I agree that there is cross over in the work that Synacor is doing & the project I'm proposing. I mentioned it in a message sent to the Zeta Alliance list earlier in the week where I wrote:</div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br></div><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><div style="font-size: 13.3333px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="2" color="#000099">In more recent years, Zimbra mailbox node HA was on the road map for Telligent, and most recently is on the road map for Synacor, with some suggestions indicating that it might make an appearance in a Zimbra 9.0 release. I think many Zimbra partners understand the significant undertaking that will be needed to decouple the storage of end user mailboxes from the mailbox nodes, and given that effort, the arrival of a true mailbox node HA feature is probably some ways off yet into the future.</font></div></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I'm very much looking forward to seeing Synacor's implementation of Docker containers + Kubernetes in a future Zimbra release. When this new Zimbra architecture becomes available from Synacor, it will be a game changer. However, as Zimbra partners, we don't really know with any reasonable degree of certainty when we will see this new architecture from Synacor go into General Availability. Partners have a </span>similar<span style="font-size: 10pt;"> challenge currently with determining when the developers at Synacor are focusing on bugs within a given release, especially with the discontinuation of pm.zimbra.com, which is a topic that comes up frequently on the weekly Zeta Alliance calls. Also, given the challenges that we saw during 2017 in Zimbra's efforts to break out just the IMAPD service from the Zimbra mailbox servers, I suspect we'll see a similar extended time frame for the break out of each of the other Zimbra mailbox services into containers, as part of the new Zimbra architecture. If we operate on the assumption that the new Zimbra architecture won't go GA optimistically until at least 9.1, but perhaps more realistically 9.5, the project I'm proposing is just a means to try and give the Zimbra community several of the same benefits of the new Zimbra architecture, but at a much earlier date to address some real world issues that arise with running Zimbra mailbox servers in production. At the very least, the project could serve as a helpful warm-up to the concept of using Zimbra containers, so when the new Zimbra architecture goes GA, it'll make it that much easier for partners to convert to the new architecture, given the familiarity that we'll hopefully have built up during the interim.</span></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></span></font></div><br><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span name="x"></span><div><div><div><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;"><br>Randy Leiker (</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">randy@skywaynetworks.com</span> <span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">)</span></span><br><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Skyway Networks, LLC</span><br><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">1.800.538.5334</span> <span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">/</span> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">913.663.3900 Ext. 100</span><br><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"></span><a href="http://www.skywaynetworks.com">https://www.skywaynetworks.com</a><br></div></div></div><span name="x"></span><br></div><hr id="zwchr" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;"><b>From: </b>"Malte S. Stretz" <mss@msquadrat.de><br><b>To: </b>users@lists.zetalliance.org<br><b>Sent: </b>Thursday, January 18, 2018 12:39:29 PM<br><b>Subject: </b>Re: [Users] Zimbra mailbox project<br><br>
<p>Hi folks,</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>just a short heads-up: One of the things Synacor <i>is</i>
working on is a dockerization/kubernetization of Zimbra. If you're
interested, have a look here <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP7WJfe-0iw#t=01h52m44" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP7WJfe-0iw#t=01h52m44</a>
(at 01:55:44).</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>I don't think duplicating effort in this area is well invested
time. I'd prefer if people picked up their favorite bug and tried
to contribute back code via GitHub (I was quite successful in this
area already). Maybe the Zeta developers list could be used to
coordinate work and avoid duplication.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Cheers,</p>
<p>Malte<br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 18.01.2018 19:24, Randy Leiker
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:559331580.404.1516299851328.JavaMail.%22Randy%20Leiker%22@RandysPC">
<style>p { margin: 0; }</style>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:
10pt; color: #000000">
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Hi David,</div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br>
</div>
<div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I'm looking at using Docker
containers because it allows for a</span></font><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">bstracting the Zimbra
services of a mailbox node as much as possible from the
operating system (short of changing the standard Zimbra
distro), which I think will make it easier to script the
process of spinning up or tearing down new mailbox node
instances. One of the goals of the project is to identify
ways to automate as much of the Zimbra mailbox node
provisioning & de-provisioning process as practical, to
allow for easier online moves of end user mailboxes from one
node to another, and I think the key to doing this is to
minimize the amount of infrastructure that needs to be
cloned for each new instance of a Zimbra mailbox node. </span><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:
13.3333px;">It's definitely possible to script the process
of cloning an entire VM, but it seems like that adds extra
complexity as compared to deploying a cloned Docker
container with a pre-configured instance of a Zimbra
mailbox node, since a scripted cloning of a VM also needs
to consider customizations for the underlying cloned OS
too. If the Zimbra mailbox node is housed solely within a
container, it should minimize the amount of deployment
steps for new mailbox nodes, which I'm hoping will
translate to faster deployment times & greater
simplicity. Of course, there's also the possibility t</span></font><span style="font-size: 13.3333px; font-family: arial, helvetica,
sans-serif;">his approach may prove to have some unforeseen</span><span style="font-size: 13.3333px; font-family: arial, helvetica,
sans-serif;"> pitfalls, and that's why I welcome everyone's
input, as I'm exploring all options to refine the original
idea into something that's beneficial for all.</span></div>
<div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;"><br>
</span></font></div>
<div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">Storage in Docker containers
works differently than in VMs. Container storage is
transient by design, but there are options for making
container storage persistent. I'm just starting to look
into which storage method for containers would allow for
minimizing time consuming copies of large numbers of end
user mailboxes across the network, while trying to steer
clear of expensive, proprietary storage options. So, I
don't know the answer to that question yet.</span></font></div>
<br>
<br>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span></span>
<div>
<div>
<div><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0); font-weight:
bold;"><br>
Randy Leiker (</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">
<span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:randy@skywaynetworks.com" target="_blank">randy@skywaynetworks.com</a></span>
<span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">)</span></span><br>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Skyway Networks,
LLC</span><br>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">1.800.538.5334</span>
<span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">/</span> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">913.663.3900 Ext. 100</span><br>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"></span><a href="http://www.skywaynetworks.com" target="_blank">https://www.skywaynetworks.com</a><br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<span></span><br>
</div>
<hr id="zwchr" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial,
helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial,
sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; font-style:
normal; text-decoration: none;"><b>From: </b>"David Touitou"
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:david@network-studio.com" target="_blank"><david@network-studio.com></a><br>
<b>To: </b>"Randy Leiker" <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:randy@skywaynetworks.com" target="_blank"><randy@skywaynetworks.com></a><br>
<b>Cc: </b><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:users@lists.zetalliance.org" target="_blank">users@lists.zetalliance.org</a><br>
<b>Sent: </b>Thursday, January 18, 2018 4:02:05 AM<br>
<b>Subject: </b>Re: [Users] Zimbra mailbox project<br>
<br>
<div style="font-family: lucida console,sans-serif; font-size:
10pt; color: #000000">
<div>Hello,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I'm not sure I get the point of Kubernetes/Docker about
standard VM so I'll follow this thread with curiosity.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>About the export/import/migration of mailboxes, where
do you intend to store the emails?</div>
<div>I mean, are they supposed to be in the containers (or
VM) or stored as objects through an
object-storage-solution (HSM+S3, OpenIO, Ceph+Beezim,
Scality)?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>David</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<hr id="zwchr">
<div>
<blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid #1010FF;
margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px; color: #000;
font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;
text-decoration: none; font-family:
Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>De: </b>"Randy
Leiker" <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:randy@skywaynetworks.com" target="_blank"><randy@skywaynetworks.com></a><br>
<b>À: </b><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:users@lists.zetalliance.org" target="_blank">users@lists.zetalliance.org</a><br>
<b>Envoyé: </b>Mercredi 17 Janvier 2018 18:59:23<br>
<b>Objet: </b>Re: [Users] Zimbra mailbox project<br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<div>
<blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid #1010FF;
margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px; color: #000;
font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;
text-decoration: none; font-family:
Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<style>p { margin: 0; }</style>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;
font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">
<div>Hi Jonathan,</div>
<br>
<div>You have several good questions. As the project
is in the early phases of getting started, I don't
have all of the answers, but can share what I know
so far. A key premise of the project would be to
transition from having a small number of very large
mailbox nodes to instead having a large number of
small mailbox nodes. In other words, you would see
your average mailbox node size of 16 TB drop
considerably, perhaps into the 100s of gigabytes or
less, while the number of mailbox nodes you have
would in turn increase greatly from 50 to perhaps
something in the low hundreds of mailbox nodes.
Since each mailbox node would have far fewer
mailboxes on it than your current configuration, it
becomes much more feasible to evacuate all mailboxes
from a given node, should that node require
maintenance or replacement. In effect, it makes the
mailbox nodes something of a disposable commodity,
since mailbox nodes are no longer a unique,
difficult to replace snowflake, and become more like
a herd of cattle (pun intended), which is easy to
replicate.</div>
<br>
<div>Since the project is currently in the information
gathering stage, to be followed by a proof of
concept stage, I wanted to publicly announce it
within the Zeta Alliance early on to solicit
feedback & ideas to improve on the original
concept. In the email announcing the project
yesterday, I didn't elaborate much on the methods
being evaluated for evacuating end user mailboxes
from a mailbox node, but two that I'm looking at
now, for automation with scripting, are both
zmmboxmove & zmmailbox. They both use differing
methods, where the former seems to use a rsync-like
method, and the latter uses an export/import method.
Since the intent of the project is to use existing
admin functionality within Zimbra, along with
additional helper open source utilities where
appropriate, I don't yet know which of these offers
the best match & to what degree these utilities
remain functional when a mailbox node goes bad. I
think this question can only be answered through
additional testing.</div>
<br>
<div>So far, I've successfully spun up some Docker
containers running Zimbra mailbox nodes in some
preliminary testing within a lab environment. It's
too early in the process yet, so performance stats
aren't available, but the idea of having mailbox
nodes operate within containers, is that they share
a common host operating system (Linux, Ubuntu,
etc.), so the containers themselves have just the
Zimbra components. Since the containers are sharing
a host OS, they should use the host's resources more
efficiently, as opposed to running the full stack
(OS + Zimbra) within a given VM. It's similar in
many ways to the efficiencies gained with running
many VMs on a single physical host. This should
then allow for running larger numbers of mailbox
nodes (in containers) across multiple VMs/physical
hosts. This is where Kubernetes comes in, as a
means to orchestrate all of the individual
containers running Zimbra mailbox nodes.</div>
<br>
<div>It's possible that Zimbra & Zextras's backup
utilities will come into play, but for now, I'm
trying to keep the project focused on doing online
mailbox moves, or at least nearly online moves
(accounting for mailboxes being placed temporarily
into maintenance mode) as is possible with the
current Zimbra admin utilities.</div>
<br>
<br>
<div><span></span>
<div>
<div>
<div><span style="color: #ff6600; font-weight:
bold;"><br>
Randy Leiker (</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> <span style="color: #3333ff; background-color:
#ffffff;"><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:randy@skywaynetworks.com" target="_blank">randy@skywaynetworks.com</a></span>
<span style="color: #ff6600;">)</span></span><br>
<span style="color: #000099;">Skyway Networks,
LLC</span><br>
<span style="color: #000099;">1.800.538.5334</span>
<span style="color: #ff6600;">/</span> <span style="color: #000099;">913.663.3900 Ext.
100</span><br>
<span style="color: #000099;"></span><a href="http://www.skywaynetworks.com" target="_blank">https://www.skywaynetworks.com</a><br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<span></span><br>
</div>
<hr id="zwchr">
<div style="color: #000; font-weight: normal;
font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;
font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size:
12pt;"><b>From: </b>"Jonathan Labbé"
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:jlabbe@neonova.net" target="_blank"><jlabbe@neonova.net></a><br>
<b>To: </b>"Randy Leiker"
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:randy@skywaynetworks.com" target="_blank"><randy@skywaynetworks.com></a><br>
<b>Cc: </b><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:users@lists.zetalliance.org" target="_blank">users@lists.zetalliance.org</a><br>
<b>Sent: </b>Wednesday, January 17, 2018 10:31:19
AM<br>
<b>Subject: </b>Re: [Users] Zimbra mailbox project<br>
<br>
<div dir="ltr">Wish, I did not have to leave in the
middle of the meeting. So we take huge advantage
of this already. We are currently running 4x LDAP
(2 MMR servers and 2 Replica only servers), 8 x
MTAs, 8x Proxies, and ~50x Mailbox stores, spread
across two virtual data centers. We have F5's in
the mix to help with proper load balancing and
handling our SSL termination, and our own
mailproxy system in front of Zimbra handling our
client authentication. <br>
<div>We have been looking at ways to try and
maintain balanced numbers on our mailbox stores,
with size of mailbox, imap usage (which
hopefully the new IMAP servers will be good),
etc. The feasibility of just evacuating a mail
store for us, as you put it, just doesn't seem
feasible. For example, we have a good chunk of
our mail stores with 16TB of mail on them.
That's a lot to just suddenly move, especially
if you're trying to ensure as little or no loss
of mail while this happens.<br>
<div>A few questions I have;</div>
<br>
<div>How are you evacuating mailboxes off of a
"bad" mailstore? How does that user data and
their mail get transferred to the other mail
stores? I am not aware of any zmmailbox
command that just does this, except for
zmboxmove, this can be a slow process.</div>
<div>Have you ran a dockerized mailbox store
before? How does it perform? How many users
were you able to run concurrently on this mail
store? </div>
<div>Is this process also taking advantage of
Zimbra's backup processes to ensure fast
mailstore recovery?<br>
<br>
<div> <br>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all">
<div>
<div class="m_5597709289716434337gmail_signature"><br>
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<a href="tel:%28919%29%20460-3330" target="_blank">919-460-3330</a>
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<div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jan 16,
2018 at 6:54 PM, Randy Leiker <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:randy@skywaynetworks.com" target="_blank">randy@skywaynetworks.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0 0 0 .8ex;
border-left: 1px #ccc solid;
padding-left: 1ex;">
<div>
<div style="font-family:
arial,helvetica,sans-serif;
font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">
<div style="color: #000000;"><span style="font-family: arial,
helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: small;">Hi
Everyone,</span></div>
<div style="color: #000000;"><span style="font-family: arial,
helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: small;"><br>
</span></div>
<div style="color: #000000;"><span style="font-family: arial,
helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: small;">Earlier, on
today's weekly Zeta Alliance
call, I proposed a project to
introduce new resiliency
capabilities to Zimbra mailbox
servers. Here's an outline of
what was discussed & a
further expansion on that
topic:</span></div>
<div style="color: #000000;"><span style="font-family: arial,
helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: small;"><br>
</span></div>
<div style="color: #000000;"><b><span style="font-family: arial,
helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: small;">Project
Background</span></b></div>
<div style="color: #000000;"><span style="font-family: arial,
helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: small;">Dating back
to early Zimbra versions, it's
always been possible to create
a cluster of Zimbra server
nodes where individual
components of Zimbra can be
broken out into separate nodes
for both load balancing &
reliability benefits. As an
example, consider a minimal
Zimbra cluster with:</span></div>
<div style="color: #000000;">
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family:
arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size:
small;">2 x LDAP nodes</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family:
arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size:
small;">2 x Proxy nodes</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family:
arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size:
small;">2 x MTA nodes</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family:
arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size:
small;">2 x Mailbox nodes</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: arial,
helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: small;">Within this
example cluster, you could
afford to lose 1 of each type
of node (either due to
maintenance, human error, or a
disaster event), and the
Zimbra cluster would remain
mostly operational. The
exception, is the mailbox
nodes, in that, if you lose a
mailbox node, any user
mailboxes on that node become
immediately unavailable. This
limitation exists because, by
design, a user's mailbox
storage is tightly bound to a
given mailbox node.</span></div>
<div style="color: #000000;"><span style="font-family: arial,
helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: small;"><br>
</span></div>
<div style="color: #000000;"><span style="font-family: arial,
helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: small;">Shortly
after Zimbra was acquired from
Yahoo by VMware, there were
mentions in various webinars
& presentations regarding
expanding on Zimbra's high
availability (HA)
capabilities. Most of those
discussions seemed to focus on
leveraging HA capabilities
that were part of VMware
products, but not necessarily
in adding native HA
capabilities to the Zimbra
Suite itself. The VMware
approach to HA for Zimbra
works, as long as the VM
hosting a Zimbra node remains
bootable and all of the Zimbra
services can start
successfully following
recovery by VMware's HA
feature. However, it's of no
help when you need to take a
Zimbra mailbox node down for
maintenance, perform a mailbox
node upgrade, troubleshoot a
fault on a mailbox node, or
just deprecate a mailbox node
for migration to newer
hardware, since the end result
is down time for mailbox end
users.</span></div>
<div style="color: #000000;"><span style="font-family: arial,
helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: small;"><br>
</span></div>
<div style="color: #000000;"><span style="font-family: arial,
helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: small;">In more
recent years, Zimbra mailbox
node HA was on the road map
for Telligent, and most
recently is on the road map
for Synacor, with some
suggestions indicating that it
might make an appearance in a
Zimbra 9.0 release. I think
many Zimbra partners
understand the significant
undertaking that will be
needed to decouple the storage
of end user mailboxes from the
mailbox nodes, and given that
effort, the arrival of a true
mailbox node HA feature is
probably some ways off yet
into the future.</span></div>
<div style="color: #000000;"><span style="font-family: arial,
helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: small;"><br>
</span></div>
<div style="color: #000000;"><b><span style="font-family: arial,
helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: small;">Project
Proposal</span></b></div>
<div style="color: #000000;"><span style="font-family: arial,
helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: small;">I propose
building new flexibility
around Zimbra mailbox nodes,
while leaving the standard
Zimbra distribution as-is.
This would allow for
addressing the current
shortcomings outlined above.
Above all, the intent of the
project is to avoid changing
the standard Zimbra
distribution, so as not to
create future support or
upgrade problems, and rather
to leverage a combination of
freely available, open source
tools & built-in Zimbra
admin utilities to make it
easy enough that Zimbra admins
(of all skill levels) have the
ability to take Zimbra mailbox
nodes on & offline at-will
with no disruption to mailbox
end users. This doesn't
eliminate the need for best
practices, such as regular
backups of your Zimbra
infrastructure, but rather
seeks to solve issues that
backups don't address.</span></div>
<div style="color: #000000;"><span style="font-family: arial,
helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: small;"><br>
</span></div>
<div style="color: #000000;"><span style="font-family: arial,
helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: small;">The project
involves placing all Zimbra
mailbox nodes within Docker
containers, so it's the same
mailbox node install you're
used to doing, but just within
a container instead. Other
components of Zimbra (LDAP,
MTAs, Proxies, etc.) could
continue to run as VMs,
physical machines, or perhaps
within containers as well.
With at least several
containers, each running a
Zimbra mailbox node, user
mailboxes would presumably be
evenly distributed over those
mailbox nodes. This
distribution could be done
arbitrarily by a Zimbra admin,
or through the course of
normal day-to-day provisioning
of mailboxes, by allowing
Zimbra to choose which mailbox
node to provision mailboxes
on, from the pool of available
mailbox nodes, which is
functionality that exists
today within Zimbra. With the
introduction of the Zextras
tools in Zimbra 8.8, using the
Zextras backup/restore
functionality would be yet
another means to migrate
customer mailboxes into
mailbox nodes, housed within
containers.</span></div>
<div style="color: #000000;"><span style="font-family: arial,
helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: small;"><br>
</span></div>
<div style="color: #000000;"><span style="font-family: arial,
helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: small;">A script
would then be created to allow
for a given mailbox node
(container) to have all of its
mailboxes evacuated
automatically. There are many
cases where you may need to
place a mailbox node into
maintenance mode. To name a
few:</span></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family:
arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size:
small;">A service
impacting configuration
change is needed. For
example, a Zimbra service
restart for a new Let's
Encrypt SSL certificate,
or a zmprov local
configuration value change
that you want to test.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family:
arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size:
small;">A hardware or
software (operating
system/Zimbra package)
fault exists.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family:
arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size:
small;">The mailbox node
has insufficient hardware
resources & is being
deprecated for a newer
mailbox node with more
resources.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family:
arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size:
small;">The mailbox node
has developed an unknown,
difficult to troubleshoot
problem, so rather than
troubleshoot it, the node
is simply replaced.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family:
arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size:
small;">A prior
configuration error (aka
human error) has led to an
unstable mailbox node, so
rather than fixing it, the
node is replaced.</span></li>
</ul>
<div><span style="font-family:
arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size:
small;">The script would
take a few simple inputs,
such as the target mailbox
node, and the desired
action. Available actions
might include:</span></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family:
arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size:
small;">Evacuating all
mailboxes from a node</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family:
arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size:
small;">Restoring
mailboxes to a node</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family:
arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size:
small;">Evacuating all
mailboxes & removing
the node from the
cluster</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family:
arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size:
small;">Adding a node to
the Zimbra cluster &
re-distributing
mailboxes to the newly
added node</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family:
arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size:
small;">For options
requiring evacuation of
mailboxes, the script would
query Zimbra LDAP to
determine which mailboxes
are on that server, then
using Zimbra's built-in
zmmailbox utility, evacuate
those mailboxes evenly
across the remaining mailbox
nodes (containers). For
options requiring
adding/removal of mailbox
nodes, this would have a
tie-in with both Docker
& perhaps Kubernetes to
allow for automating the
provisioning &
de-provisioning of
containers for hosting the
mailbox nodes. I think
there's room to greatly
expand on the available
actions for this script, but
this could be the first few
steps. Care would be needed
to ensure that the script
handles error conditions
well, most likely by
alerting a human to a
problem encountered carrying
out a given action, with a
recommendation of what's
needed next to resolve it.</span></div>
</div>
<div><span style="font-family:
arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: small;"><br>
</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:
arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: small;">I know
that's a long email, but
wanted to offer some
explanation to give you a
scope of the project. The
project would be free &
open source for all in the
Zimbra community to use.
Several people expressed
interest in this project on
the weekly call earlier
today. I'm curious to hear if
others in the Zeta Alliance
feel that this would be a
worthwhile project that your
organization could use and/or
contribute to in the form of
ideas, development, or
testing. Your thoughts &
feedback please?</span></div>
<div style="color: #000000;
font-family:
arial,helvetica,sans-serif;
font-size: 10pt;"><br>
</div>
<br>
<div style="color: #000000;
font-family:
arial,helvetica,sans-serif;
font-size: 10pt;"><span></span>
<div>
<div>
<div><span style="color:
#ff6600; font-weight:
bold;"><br>
Randy Leiker (</span><span style="font-weight:
bold;"> <span style="color: #3333ff;
background-color:
#ffffff;"><a href="mailto:randy@skywaynetworks.com" target="_blank">randy@skywaynetworks.com</a></span>
<span style="color:
#ff6600;">)</span></span><br>
<span style="color:
#000099;">Skyway
Networks, LLC</span><br>
<span style="color:
#000099;"><a href="tel:%28800%29%20538-5334" target="_blank">1.800.538.5334</a></span>
<span style="color:
#ff6600;">/</span> <span style="color: #000099;"><a href="tel:%28913%29%20663-3900" target="_blank">913.663.3900
Ext. 100</a></span><br>
<span style="color:
#000099;"></span><a href="http://www.skywaynetworks.com" target="_blank">https://www.skywaynetworks.com</a><br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<span></span><br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
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</div>
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</div>
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</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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</blockquote>
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