Installing Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) on CentOS/RHEL 7.x

Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) is a collaborative platform for email servers, which have two (2) editions:

  1. Open-Source Edition which free for everyone.
  2. Network Edition, it is paid.

This platform provides services such as LDAP, SMTP, POP and IMAP, webmail client, calendaring, tasks, antivirus, antispam and others.

Here, we will install Zimbra Collaboration Suite Open-Source Edition on a CentOS/RHEL 7 server.

System Requirements (Minimum):

  • CPU: Intel/AMD 64-bit CPU 2.0 GHz
  • RAM: 8GB
  • Disk Space: 10GB

Prerequires:

  1. A clean server with minimal version of CentOS/RHEL installed.
  2. A static IP address assign to the network interface of the server.
  3. An external DNS server, which supports A/MX records etc. to point the domain to the mail server.

Step 1: Configure Hostname

We have to set the server’s hostname and FQDN to point to our server IP Address. Here, I will use “mail.bdixhost.com.bd” as my hostname and my server IP is 103.148.15.35.

# hostnamectl set-hostname "mail.bdixhost.com.bd"
# exec bash
# echo "103.148.15.35  mail.bdixhost.com.bd  mail " >> /etc/hosts

The hostname can be verify by the following command:

# cat /etc/hosts

Step 2: Disable Unwanted Programs & Services

We need to disable some services which may conflict with Zimbra. Most common of those 2 are SeLinux and Postfix.

To disable SeLinux:

# getenforce
# setenforce 0
# getenforce

To Disable Postfix:

# systemctl stop postfix
# systemctl disable postfix
# yum -y remove postfix

Step 3: Install the necessary packages

Now we will install the necessary packages by running the following command:

# yum -y install unzip net-tools sysstat openssh-clients perl-core libaio nmap-ncat libstdc++.so.6 epel-release deltarpm wget

Step 4: Install Zimbra Collaboration Suite Open-Source Edition

Now we will download the Zimbra Collaboration Suite package and will install it.

Zimbra Download URL: https://files.zimbra.com/downloads/8.8.15_GA/zcs-8.8.15_GA_3869.RHEL7_64.20190918004220.tgz 

Alternative URL: https://www.mkam.al/zimbra/zcs-8.8.15_GA_3869.RHEL7_64.20190918004220.tgz

Download from any URL with wget command. Here I have used the first URL:

# wget https://files.zimbra.com/downloads/8.8.15_GA/zcs-8.8.15_GA_3869.RHEL7_64.20190918004220.tgz

 After completing the download, we will unzip the archive and will enter to the installer directory by executing the following commands:

# tar xfz zcs-8.8.15_GA_3869.RHEL7_64.20190918004220.tgz
# cd zcs-8.8.15_GA_3869.RHEL7_64.20190918004220/

Now we will run the installer entering the following command:

# ./install.sh

OR

# ./install.sh --platform-override   [On different platforms other than RHEL]

You will see output like below:

 Type “Y” and hit enter.

The installation process will prompt you a series of questions in order to configure Zimbra daemons. You can press “Y” for all.

Once you see the following screen:

Type “yes” and press enter. Then type your domain and press enter again.

Here, I have entered my domain name “bdixhost.com.bd”

It will prompt the Zimbra Store Configuration Page.

Type “7” and hit enter. Now we will set our admin password. To set the password, type “4” and hit enter. Now type your password on prompt and hit enter again.

Now press “r” to exit and then “a” to apply the settings.

It will prompt to save the configuration. Now, type “Yes” and hit enter. After confirming all, it will run some automatic processes, it may take few minutes. Once completed all, you will be able to login to Zimbra Admin Panel by visiting the following:

https://your-hostname:7071
https://server-ip:7071

To login to webmail, use the following URLs:

https://your-hostname
https://server-ip

By default, Zimbra Webmail Client works over https only. To enable it over http too, execute the following commands:

# su - zimbra
# zmprov ms 'Your_Hostname' zimbraReverseProxySSLToUpstreamEnabled FALSE
# zmprov ms 'Your_Hostname' zimbraMailMode both
# zmprov ms 'Your_Hostname' zimbraReverseProxyMailMode both
# ./libexec/zmproxyconfig -e -w -o -a 8080:80:8443:443 -x both -H 'Your_Hostname'
# zmcontrol restart

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