..or Zimbra silent install in Sun terminology.

This was tested on Zimbra 4.5.4 Network edition, RHEL4 but is probably applicable to all 4.5.x versions.

I’m talking about installing Zimbra components automatically rather than running the install script and answering a bunch of questions. A silent install script can be put into kickstart scripts to automate the Zimbra install during server provisioning. This is handy if you have a server failure or you need to provision additional machines to scale your infrastructure. It takes out the guesswork and speeds up the process.

The Zimbra architecture I’m working on currently is a multi-server install without clustering. We have 1 ldap master, 4 mtas, 5 stores and 2 multiplexers. Each uses the Zimbra installer but the questions are answered differently depending on the type of host.

You can automate the install by:
– using a generated config.pid file or
– capturing your keystokes and playing them back.

If you are doing a multi-server install with replicated ldap, you will not be able to use the generated configure to install your stores. This is because you have to disable ldap during the store install or the install will fail. The configure doesn’t record that you disabled ldap. So:

# gzip -dc zcs*NETWORK*z|tar xf -
# cd zcs
# ./install.sh

Open an editor in a second window and each time you type a key during your install type that key into your editor.

Here’s one of my keystrokes_host_install.in files (with domain name changed to my own to protect the innocent):
This example starts with a carriage return

y
y
n
y
y
y
y
n
2
ldap.1038east.com
4
pass
6
4
pass
9
smtp.1038east.com
20
/home/morgan/ZCSLicense.xml
r
5
1
r
a
y

y

Now uninstall (./install -u) and:

./install.sh < ../keystrokes_host.in

References
forum posting on automated installation.posting
forum posting on ldap replication