DRAFT: HOW-TO for Disaster Recovery from ftp, scp or rsync backup. Feedback wlc.

[droker]

Hi Trym.

I have tried everything and i cant figure out what im doing wrong.

I followed your excellent instructions to the letter and everything gets restored except i cant login to Zarafa, either via outlook or the web interface.

It just says my username and login are incorrect.

I didnt get any error messages during the restore and the database all seems to have been imported correctly?

Any ideas?

Thanks

Dean

[Trym]

I assume you have restarted the webserver already, and if that didn't work that you have rebooted.

You can safely uninstall the groupware-module and reinstall it, that doesn't delete the mail-database. That is the first thing I would try.

If you're running zarafa on a virtual domain, you could also try setting it to a different domain (no domain), save changes, and then setting it back and save.

::Trym

[droker]

Hi Trym,

I have tried everything, i have backed up and restored everthing about 4 times now all with the same outcome.

I have moved to no domain and then back to the actual domain. Nothing seems to work, but all the users appear in the LDAP database and have Zarafa accounts enabled.

in desperation I added var/lib/zarafa to the included files because i gather that is where the attachments are stored, but that made no difference.

I am at a loss.

Any other ideas? or things i can check, its almost as if it cant read the LDAP database. Where are the logs kept do you know? I did notice the password sourced in the scripts was different on the original server to the backup. Could that be it?

Thanks

Dean

[droker]

I just logged back into the original server, when i type zarafa-admin -l it shows all the users, when i do it on the backup it just shows the System user.

What the hell could i have done wrong?

[Trym]

I really don't know, I've never seen this before.

The only thing I can think of is that there is a problem with the restoration of the zarafa-database.

Are you able to restore only the file /backup/zarafa.dump.gz?

If yes, does it appear to be the right size?

..and what happens when you run

/scripts/rebuildzarafa

(Restore the user-module again after you do the above.)

I'm sorry, this is uncharted territory for me as well.

I did notice the password sourced in the scripts was different on the original server to the backup. Could that be it?

Not sure which password you're talking about here. The scripts read the mysql zarafa-password from the current system (and they are supposed to be different from system to system), any other passwords shouldn't matter at all.

::Trym

[droker]

Hi Trym,

I have been scowering the Log files and during the restore the only thing i can see which might be causing a problem is


2011/04/18 12:23:44 DEBUG> MailUserLdap.pm:87 EBox::MailUserLdap::setUserAccount - mail account ssssss@rkrtech.co.uk already exists.
2011/04/18 12:23:44 INFO> MailUserLdap.pm:402 EBox::MailUserLdap::__ANON__ - Creation of email account for ssssss failed
2011/04/18 12:24:00 DEBUG> MailUserLdap.pm:87 EBox::MailUserLdap::setUserAccount - mail account aaaaaa@rkrtech.co.uk already exists.
2011/04/18 12:24:00 INFO> MailUserLdap.pm:402 EBox::MailUserLdap::__ANON__ - Creation of email account for aaaaaa failed
2011/04/18 12:24:15 DEBUG> MailUserLdap.pm:87 EBox::MailUserLdap::setUserAccount - mail account bbbbbb@rkrtech.co.uk already exists.
2011/04/18 12:24:15 INFO> MailUserLdap.pm:402 EBox::MailUserLdap::__ANON__ - Creation of email account for bbbbbb failed

Any Ideas whats would cause that? and do you think its the source of my problem?

Thanks

Dean

[Trym]

Yes, that certainly seems like the problem. And no, I have no clue why that happens.

It seems I have to run some tests, Zentyal may have made some recent changes which introduce this error.

Right now I'm on holiday, so I can't promise I'll get it done anytime soon, but I will do it. Sit tight.

Thanks for reporting this.

::Trym

[droker]

Thanks Trym.

In the mean time i am going to try a fresh install and see if it was my inital install that was the problem.

Thanks

Dean

[droker]

Hi Trym,

I have just done a test from a fresh install and had exactly the same result. I am not sure whats going on. Enjoy your holiday and any help you can give when you get back would be really useful.

Thanks

Dean

[droker]

Hi Trym,

How was the holiday? I dont suppose you have had chance to have a gander at this have you? I have tried a couple more times, always with the same result. I cant work out why the user database does not sync to Zarafa.

Thanks

Dean

[Trym]

Sorry for the delay.

So, I've done some testing.

First, I tried to restore a backup of my real home-server to a virtual machine. This procedure has worked countless times before. Now it doesn't. I didn't bother to even examine logs, cause the next logical step was to install a fresh virtual server and make a backup to restore.

Whaddayaknow, from a fresh 2.0.3 install to complete updated version, Zarafa now does not work at all.

Maybe I'm in a bad mood, but for me this is the final drop. I'm not even going to bother to try to make it work. I've had it with the endless string of bugs and modifications. I deeply regret (and have for a long time) ever deploying it. I can't count the man-hours it has cost constantly adjusting to a moving target.

(I wrote a page with detailed frustrations here, but decided to remove them, as they didn't add anything constructive.)

So basically what this means it that I will remove the how-to from the front-page, add a warning that it cannot longer be used, but still let people who want to read it (if they want to try additional adjustments themselves.)

This is not meant as a criticism of Zentyal per se, I'm sure it is useful for the majority of people/businesses out there, but for me personally I feel it does not suit my needs nor the needs of the people I do some work for.

I'm sorry for being unable to help, I'm sorry for withdrawing the how-to, but I cannot justify spending even more time trying to fix stuff.

Again, deeply sorry, and best of luck with Zentyal. Perhaps they have an updated backup and restore guide for you.

::Trym, over and out.

[droker]

Hi Trym,

Im really sorry to hear that you have given, up, I suspect the problem is actually quite a simple one to solve if we can find the cause. (anyone from Zentyal care to comment?)

But thank you very much for all your efforts. They have been really useful to me so far.

I have just tried some things tonight and seemed to have made a little headway.

if you disable and re-enable each of the zarafa user accounts they then appear in the user list when you run zarafa-admin -l but there is no mail when you log into the webmail (as it has created a new mailbox). if you run zarafa-admin --list-orphans it shows each of the orphaned mailboxes, you can then hook the exisiting mail accounts to the orphaned mailboxes and the emails appear back in the correct place again.

I will keep trying to see if i can work out why it doesnt work normally.

Do Zentyal support people look in here at all. Is there anything you can suggest?

Thanks

Dean

[chunk.one]

if you disable and re-enable each of the zarafa user accounts they then appear in the user list when you run zarafa-admin -l

I have the same problem after export configuration and files from one server and import it to another server.

Is it possible to script Zentyal functions instead of clicking in the WebGUI??

• get user list with zarafa account enabled and start a script:
• disable this users in zarafa
• enable this users in zarafa

[chunk.one]

No one know if it is possible to send a shell commands to Zentyal instead of clicking in the Zentyal GUI?

[Josep]

You can do anything you want with Zentyal from the shell ... as long as you can code in Perl.