Joe, Since you have vmware in your environment, why not setup an additional "whitebox" test vmware host with the free version on desktop grade hardware? >From there you could personally experiment and learn more about vmware without risking anything that is in production. You can google for whitebox setups and see if you might have hardware handy that will run it. it will usually run OK on any Intel-brand motherboard with quad+ core cpus. I know i5s and i7s have what it needs. Generally, intel chipsets will fly with it. If you have it in your environment, then this is by far the best way to get to know it.
Second, you really should attempt the Open Source version of Zimbra 8. It is everything in one package and has a nice web-based admin. It comes relatively locked down out of the box too and the support forums are loaded with answers to many of the typical issues you might run into or want to accomplish. https://kb.hivelocity.net/how-to-install-zimbra-8-on-centos-6/ You can load CentOS 6 Linux Minimal 64bit (avoid the 32bit, it is deprecating) - under vmware to boot if you get that up and running: http://centos.mirror.facebook.net/6.5/isos/x86_64/CentOS-6.5-x86_64-minimal.iso Burn .ISO to CD-R with Gizmo CDROM (http://arainia.com/software/gizmo/overview.php?nID=4) or ISO Recorder (http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm) under Windows, or under Mac OS X (and you may already know this): http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20060619181010389 Install CentOS and take default filesystem layout (and most other defaults). Minimal version is barebones and loads a specific set of packages. Then download Zimbra from: http://www.zimbra.com/downloads/os-downloads.html and run the Zimbra installer with: ./install.sh --platform-override Which tells the installer to install on CentOS as opposed to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Some directions here: https://kb.hivelocity.net/how-to-install-zimbra-8-on-centos-6/ You most likely will want to setup a hostname under your school's domain name. This could also be under your Active Directory DNS/domain if this would be an "inside" email server. Main thing is to also create an MX (Mail eXchange) record for the same A (IP Address) record in the FORWARD lookup zone of your DNS server for 'host.domain.name' (like 'zimbra.ad.school.local' for example) you choose that points to the IP of the Zimbra server. Also be sure and setup a PTR (Pointer - reverse lookup) record that resolves a DNS lookup of the IP address you use back to the hostname 'zimbra.ad.school.local'. Here's a youtube that more or less steps through all of this. It's one of those "no audio" whiteboard videos (at least I got no audio): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g7-7mkdVRs Once this is done, you can then use it for user accounts, mailing lists, and even controlled relaying. Zimbra uses postfix under the hood. There are also possibility of mass provision user accounts as well as auto-provisioning in concert with Active Directory: http://monsterbean.com/2013/05/17/zimbra-8-auto-provisioning/ Bottom line is that while Zimbra is more than what you say you really need, I've found that for less experience IT folk like yourself, it is the fastest way to get a complete email platform setup coupled with a top-notch admin interface that would let you do the things that it sounds like you are really looking for. Zimbra is used by large universities and was/is the basis for Comcast.net's web email system. Like Bill Woody suggested yesterday, just dive in and give it a whirl! :) Seriously, 30min-1hr and you could have all this up and running. I guarantee you will have a different perspective once you have this accomplished, and will then better understand how to ultimately achieve your objectives. Mark ________________________________________________________ Mark J. Bailey Jobsoft Design & Development, Inc. 104 Arlington Place, Suite 100 Franklin, TN 37064 EMAIL: [email protected] WEB: http://www.jobsoft.com/ VOICE:(615)904-9559 FAX:(615)904-9576 CELL:(615)308-9099 -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Saturday, March 29, 2014 8:05 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [nlug] Help Wanted Thank you to all for your replies. I will try to answer as much as I can to paint a more compete picture. Yes, our IT department is small for a school system with 11,800 students. Most of us, myself included, are teachers who were pretty tech saavy and pulled from the classroom. We are hired this way because the way our rules of operation are at present anyone working without a teacher's license would be stuck at teacher's aide pay and no benefits. Nedless to say, we do not attract talent in our department on that. Somehow we make it all work on no training and no other experience. I have been doing this job since 1997. I came into the job as a Mac tech and am now the data admin for our student management system--PowerSchool. We are acctually using the free version of VMware on a few of our boxes and some of the servers I maintain are virtual. I can functioin in this environment, but I would love to have a deeper understanding of how it all works. I feel we could do so much more if we only knew how. I began to dig into Linux after Apple made the jump to UNIX in Mac OS X. I have enjoyed it and learned a lot, but I suffer from not having any background and not having many ways to put what I learn into practice. This is at the root of my plea for help. I see things I want to do for our school system and see how I could accomplish it, but trying to set things up given my level of inexpertise is a frustratingly slow process. Take the email goals I mentioned as an example. Our email is hosted by RackSpace through our ISP. For the most part that works just fine. My boss uses Mailman to send email out to all users in our school system. It is hoosted by someone else and we will lose it soon. We have to do something. Additionally, PowerSchool sends out mass email to parents as progress reports. This can happen daily, weekly, or monthly (parent's choice). RackSpace doesn't like this and says we are spamming because it violates their user agreement. Communication with parents is an important part of doing business for us and this is definitely not spam. It's also not anything like you would use Mailman or MailChimp for because each progress report is individualized for each student with their particulat claasses and assignments listed. I really need to set up a mail server just to handle the mail from PowerSchool and our internal list serv. I somehow got one up and running, but how do I harden it so that someone doesn't relay from it? How do I keep everything backed up in case we have hardware failure and I need to restore? What in the world do all those logs mean when I look at them to see if things are running normally or not? I could go on. The heart of my queestion is this: will someone please teach me to fish? Joe -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NLUG" group. 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