CentOS 8.x Zimbra upgrade

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Patch upgrade

For minor version upgrade or patch upgrades we can use:

1. We can check existing version including patch version via:

   zmcontrol -v

   Then check if a updated version or updated patch is available for the same Zimbra major/minor release.

2. Take backup of VM through snapshot etc. if possible. Other option is to take backup of entire /opt/zimbra folder.
3. Take copy of /opt/zimbra/conf at another location for quick reference after upgrade
4. Stop Zimbra as zimbra user

   zmcontrol stop

5. Update packages as root user

   yum -y update
   

6. For kernel update had to use below once

   yum reinstall cpio

   • Refer: https://forums.centos.org/viewtopic.php?t=79639

7. Compare old copy of /opt/zimbra/conf with new copy for any manual changes that might have got overwritten during upgrade.
8. Start zimbra again

   zmcontrol start

Major upgrade

For major version upgrade:

1. Download the updated version of zimbra in .tgz (Zip) format

   We must keep both old and new zimbra setups with us for future recovery / restore operations

2. Extract the files of updated version
3. Take copy of /opt/zimbra/conf at another location for quick reference after upgrade
4. Go through installation of zimbra using "./install.sh" with required platform override, if required

   The installer will automatically detect existing version and go through the update process.

5. Compare old copy of /opt/zimbra/conf with new copy for any manual changes that might have got overwritten during upgrade.

Caveats from update

Following things have been noticed to get affected due to upgrade, which must be fixed promptly:

Spamassasin configuration and scores might get overwritten

CentOS 8.x Zimbra Configure spamassasin email score based on client RBL

CBpolicyd security configuration via http might get overwritten

CentOS 7.x Configure cbpolicyd for Zimbra 8.7

Postfix configuration for copying of incoming/outgoing emails get overwritten

CentOS 8.x Zimbra forward a copy of all incoming and outgoing emails to audit email ID

Refer:

• https://wiki.zimbra.com/wiki/Best_Practices_for_executing_Package_Updates
• https://zimbra.github.io/installguides/latest/upgrade.html
• https://wiki.zimbra.com/wiki/Zimbra_Releases/8.7.0/Upgrade

Solve AWS Zimbra VM not booting after update issue

In one case VM did not boot after update. To solve that use:

1. We detached root volume (30GB) from mail.example.com
2. Attached it to a test VM as /dev/sdf
3. Powered on test VM
4. In test VM we did

     mkdir /mnt/sysimage
     mount /dev/sdf1 /mnt/sysimage
     mount -o bind /dev /mnt/sysimage/dev
     mount -o bind /proc /mnt/sysimage/proc
     chroot /mnt/sysimage
     
     yum reinstall cpio
     yum reinstall kernel

5. To change grub timeout modified '/etc/grub2.cfg' below at two places:

   set timeout=60

   • Also in '/etc/default/grub' set 'GRUB_TIMEOUT=60'

     • Refer: https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/linux-change-boot-options-grub

6. Then exit and reboot chrooted VM

   exit
   shutdown -h now

7. Removed the 30GB volume from test VM
8. attached 30GB volume back to mail.example.com as /dev/sda1

   Giving name /dev/sda1 for boot volume is very important

9. After that the VM booted into updated kernel properly.

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