clarification necessary

[Jens]

I was asking your sales staff but got no clear answer:
1. In the manual for the community version I can read about (only) 5 Enterprise Users (Scalix Community Edition includes five free Enterprise user licenses which may be used to…) but on your website I can see “25 kostenlose Enterprise-Benutzer”, please let me know which of this statements are true. You should change your web site or your scalix_installation_guide_community.pdf.
Please let the community know if 5 or 25 enterprise users are included.
2. Also regarding your explanation on different threads about the licence policy. As far as I understand it is necessary to buy at least 25 user licenses + 1 additional if I want to use 26 full Scalix Enterprise users, correct?
3. I got no price list from your sales department, can you tell me the price of 25 licences and above, on different sites I can see an average price of 50 EUR…
4. Also I have learned that I can install your solution within a virtual server on a CENTOS4 OS (with the limitation of no support of course).
My need or inquiry is now to know whether it is possible to install your solution in an only command line mode. I do not need any graphical GUI because it’s a server version only, so I don’t have any graphical UI tools installed/activated.
5. Are there any things which would let you hesitate to install Scalix in such an environment (beside the CPU power consumption or RAM obstacles)?

Many thanks for your clarification on this.
Best regards J.

[mephisto]

I'm not from scalix, but I think I can answer some of your questions anyway.

1. In the manual for the community version I can read about (only) 5 Enterprise Users (Scalix Community Edition includes five free Enterprise user licenses which may be used to…) but on your website I can see “25 kostenlose Enterprise-Benutzer”, please let me know which of this statements are true. You should change your web site or your scalix_installation_guide_community.pdf.
Please let the community know if 5 or 25 enterprise users are included.

The PDF is outdated. Scalix offers 25 free enterprise users in the community edition.

2. Also regarding your explanation on different threads about the licence policy. As far as I understand it is necessary to buy at least 25 user licenses + 1 additional if I want to use 26 full Scalix Enterprise users, correct?

This is correct.

3. I got no price list from your sales department, can you tell me the price of 25 licences and above, on different sites I can see an average price of 50 EUR…

AFAIK it is 60 Euros in Europe, plus 12 Euros maintenance per year and user.

4. Also I have learned that I can install your solution within a virtual server on a CENTOS4 OS (with the limitation of no support of course).
My need or inquiry is now to know whether it is possible to install your solution in an only command line mode. I do not need any graphical GUI because it’s a server version only, so I don’t have any graphical UI tools installed/activated.

Scalix 10 is said to offer a command line installer and is going to be released on Tuesday.

5. Are there any things which would let you hesitate to install Scalix in such an environment (beside the CPU power consumption or RAM obstacles)?

I'm still testing if it works. All I can tell you is that the vservers you get at various providers won't work here. You will have to set this up on a powerful machine yourself. I have a dual xeon 2,4 GHz that is just sitting there doing some samba stuff. I plan to equip it with some additional scsi drives and 1,5GB RAM to run scalix in OpenVZ.

[Jens]

First of all respect!
Very fast answer and for me – as you can guess - very satisfying!
So I am very keen to see the upcoming version 10. In this case I can wait the couple of days.

But by the way, which VM do you use?
I am using currently VMWare with CentOS 4.2 and a installed Asterisk VoIP-PBX (that’s the reason why CentOS and not RH).
The server is located in my own office, not on the provider side.
And it will be never more then 25 users (small company).
What is your feeling about the stability (as far as you could test it)?

So if you are planning to take the chance to install the next version please let me know. Maybe we can support each other…

And at last another big question.
The VMWare Host is installed on a MS Server 2003 machine.
Do you know if I can save the complete Message Store, which is located at /var/opt/scalix/ in a network-directory on the Windows-Server? It should be something like a redirector from the above mentioned directory to the network-directory (located on the second OS).
If anybody could give me an advice I would appreciate it very much.
The reason: I would like to have the virtual Machine limited to a size of xx GB and all User-data in a centralized user-directory (e.g. Backup, etc.).

Thanks again
Jens

[mephisto]

But by the way, which VM do you use?

As I mentioned, I'm using OpenVZ. This is not really a virtual machine as it runs on linux using the same kernel as the host system. Read more on that here.

What is your feeling about the stability (as far as you could test it)?

I haven't had much time to test it, it's gonna be one to two weeks till I have some results here. OpenVZ lets you define the amount of resources the VPS is getting, and I realized I had to change the recommended settings because Scalix (or Java) is somewhat hungry when I comes to the parameters OOMGUARPAGES and PRIVVMPAGES.

So if you are planning to take the chance to install the next version please let me know. Maybe we can support each other…

I'm keen to install it ASAP, though I don't think that we will be able to support each other as you chose to do this with a real VM, which is somewhat different from what I'm doing.

The VMWare Host is installed on a MS Server 2003 machine.
Do you know if I can save the complete Message Store, which is located at /var/opt/scalix/ in a network-directory on the Windows-Server? It should be something like a redirector from the above mentioned directory to the network-directory (located on the second OS).

I don't think that this is a good idea - for several reasons. Somebody asked a similar qustion here. With a windows based server this would even be worse because you would have to access it through samba. The Scalix message store heavily relies on the linux filesystem, so I think this will cause problems.

I've seen a scalix guy running it on VMware for demonstration and I've also successfully installed it on VMware, so this itself shouldn't be a problem. I just chose OpenVZ because I think it will give me better performance and I can use the underlying file system directly. If I were you I would think about replacing the windows server completely with Linux. Besides Active Directory there really isn't much you can't do with a Linux server (and with samba4 even this will change).

[florian]

Believe most of what has been said in this thread is correct; few additional comments...

... sorry for the misleading information on the number of free enterprise users in the PDF; this will be corrected for Scalix 10.

... Scalix, especially in Europe, is sold through resellers almost exclusively. Your reseller will work with you to give you an exact offer and pricing; however, the pricing figures mentioned in the post can serve as some indication for small number of users.

... CentOS per se is not supported by Scalix, however, as can be seen from other posts, it is known to work due to it's common roots with RedHat Enterprise Linux.

... Using any kind of virtualiziation technology is untested by us; obviously, running one of our supported OS platforms as a guest on a supported VM technology should work. What is said in the post is also correct, probably the most critical element of such an approach is the high dependency of Scalix on fast storage access. We've seen some storage configurations that would not give a stable experience with reliable performance. Generally, for a large scale production system, one would want the fastest storage components available in the house (SAN, hardware RAID). Also, because of the unique way we architect our message store, file locking must be working on the underlying filesystem - this might cause issues with some network-based filesystem technologies, e.g. early versions of the NFS client in the 2.6 kernel series did not support locking in a correct, failsafe and performant way. Please choose your configuration carefully for a full enterprise experience.

Enjoy,
Florian.

[Jens]

Now I was able to test your solution (second day), but I didn't get it running.
The situation:
* preconfigured CentOS (because of asterisk@home) in a virtual machine on Server2003.
* created additional two virtual HDD's, one as swap and one for your message store (mounted as /var/opt).

Installation went in the right direction only the creation of the message store lasted very long.

Now after rebooting CentOS can't start the sendmail-server, nothing happen only the "start sendmail" appears and then the server is frozen.

After starting the server in interactive mode I can start (if I do not accept the start of sendmail) in a normal way.

Can you tell me what I can do to change this situation?
I know CentOS isn't supported but it’s similar to RH, so there are not a lot of strong differences.

The running Scalix processes you can see here:
2239 scalix 0.0 % 16:43 /opt/scalix/bin/omsessd
2241 scalix 0.0 % 16:43 /opt/scalix/bin/omlicmon
2243 scalix 0.0 % 16:43 /opt/scalix/bin/omctmon
2248 scalix 0.3 % 16:43 /opt/scalix/bin/omsmdm
2251 scalix 0.0 % 16:43 /opt/scalix/bin/notif.mon
2256 scalix 0.0 % 16:43 /opt/scalix/bin/queue.manager
2270 root 0.0 % 16:43 /opt/scalix/bin/advmail.sckd
2287 scalix 0.0 % 16:43 /opt/scalix/bin/omnssck
2398 root 14.6 % 16:44 /usr/java/jre1.5.0_04/bin/java -server -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true -Djava.en ...

But I couldn't reach the (.../webmail) webclient.

The log-file didn’t show me any untypical situation, so I can’t post a bug report or anything else.

Please let me know which logfile or which information you need to fix this problem.
I have no idea why it happened.

Best regards
Jens

[florian]

well... it should work! :)

what do you mean by... can't reach webmail - what kind of error message do you get doing what?

if you don't even get to the login screen - is your apache and tomcat running? are they listening on ports 80, etc. (and/or 8080 for scalix 9)? do you have any iptables/firewall config up and running? did you activate selinux during centos install?

-- f.

[Jens]

apache and tomcat running?
- Apache is running, but on port 80 is (also) running a asterisk web application (Apache is running as asterisk user), no virtual servers are created
- Tomcat: if I check via Webmin it says yes - running (but how to check in a different way?), if I try 192.168.0.xx/sac nothing happens (404 error)

are they listening on ports 80
- httpd: I think so because the Asterisk application is currently correct running (on port 80)
- Tomcat/Apache on Port 8080: I would say no, not reachable

iptables/firewall
- no, no firewall activated (currently I am testing only inside via 192.168.0.xx)
- I dont think there are any activated iptables
- note the Linux is inside the Windows network environment, and therefore the Linux hasn't any firewall function activated (so far as I can see)

selinux
- there is no running daemon/process with this name (but I can see the existing directory)
- how I can check if this security feature is activated (no idea how it works)

Where I can check if Tomcat is running (how to see e.g. the Tomcat-Test page).
How I can configure a different port (if the 80 is used by Asterisk).
Maybe it's necessary to create a virtual server? In this case how I should do this.

Best regards
Jens
PS: at the moment new installation (even sendmail seems to work), but I didn't restart (I am not sure what will happen in this case)!

Below the different log files but I am not sure which are important:

Code: Select all

/opt/scalix-tomcat/logs/scalix-res.log:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2006-02-21 18:07:42,780  INFO [RESNamedInstances.initNamedInstances:61] Loading Scalix named

instances.
2006-02-21 18:07:42,818  INFO [RESNamedInstances.initNamedInstances:100] Finised reading Named

Instances. Total Named instances in the global config file are = 1
2006-02-21 18:07:42,823  INFO [RESNamedInstances.initNamedInstances:101] Checking Named Instances

state..
2006-02-21 18:07:42,836 DEBUG [CmdExecution.executeCmd:137] ENVIRONMENT: LANG=en_US.UTF-8

OM_CHAR=UTF-8
2006-02-21 18:07:42,841 DEBUG [CmdExecution.executeCmd:139] COMMAND: /opt/scalix/bin/sxchkinstances
2006-02-21 18:07:43,493  INFO [RESNamedInstances.initNamedInstances:116] wifone - is an Active

named instance
2006-02-21 18:07:43,516  INFO [RESNotifier.startRegistrationThread:80] Launching

Registration-thread
2006-02-21 18:07:43,520 DEBUG [RESDispatcherServlet.initialize:373] : Almost finished

initialization, now waiting for registration
2006-02-21 18:07:44,135  INFO [RegistrationEventPoller.run:113] Added Registration event to the

Notification Event Queue

queue:Event=[register|http://wifone.de/res/RESDispatcher|LISTEN|300|wifone|wifone.de|10.0.0] (try

100 retries)
2006-02-21 18:07:44,136 DEBUG [RegistrationEventPoller.run:116] Notified monitor queue that is has

a new event
2006-02-21 18:07:44,148 DEBUG [RegistrationEventPoller.run:121] Sleeping for 5000 ms before trying

again
2006-02-21 18:07:49,181 DEBUG [Notifier.sendNotification:130]

Notifier-thread-0/ACK/Event=[register|http://wifone.de/res/RESDispatcher|LISTEN|300|wifone|wifone.d

e|10.0.0]
2006-02-21 18:07:49,189  INFO [RegistrationEventPoller.run:113] Added Registration event to the

Notification Event Queue

queue:Event=[register|http://wifone.de/res/RESDispatcher|LISTEN|300|wifone|wifone.de|10.0.0] (try

100 retries)
2006-02-21 18:07:49,199 DEBUG [RegistrationEventPoller.run:116] Notified monitor queue that is has

a new event
2006-02-21 18:07:49,201 DEBUG [RegistrationEventPoller.run:121] Sleeping for 5000 ms before trying

again
2006-02-21 18:07:49,204 DEBUG [Notifier.sendNotification:130]

Notifier-thread-1/ACK/Event=[register|http://wifone.de/res/RESDispatcher|LISTEN|300|wifone|wifone.d

e|10.0.0]
2006-02-21 18:07:54,203  INFO [RegistrationEventPoller.run:87] We are registered, stopping

registration thread
2006-02-21 18:07:54,209  INFO [RESNotifier.startPollingThreads:66] Launching HeartBeat-thread
2006-02-21 18:07:54,211  INFO [RegistrationEventPoller.run:92] : Finished initialization
2006-02-21 18:07:54,212 DEBUG [HeartBeatEventPoller.run:67] Added

heartbeatEventEvent=[heartbeat|http://wifone.de/res/RESDispatcher|LISTEN|300|wifone|wifone.de|10.0.

0] to the Notification Event Queue
2006-02-21 18:07:54,216 DEBUG [Notifier.sendNotification:130]

Notifier-thread-1/ACK/Event=[heartbeat|http://wifone.de/res/RESDispatcher|LISTEN|300|wifone|wifone.

de|10.0.0]

/opt/scalix-tomcat/logs/caa.log
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2006-02-21 18:07:46,922  INFO [SOAPDispatcherServlet.init:76] ====> CAA is starting up, standby

<====
2006-02-21 18:07:47,864 ERROR [CAAConfigLoader.parseComponentNode:244] Service scalix.res,

Component disabled has no class defined!
2006-02-21 18:07:47,941  WARN [CAAConfigLoader.parseConfigDocument:224] No services are configured

in this config file
2006-02-21 18:07:48,277  INFO [GuidToServerCache$CleanupThread.run:39] Guid2Server cache is empty.

Skipping cleanup
2006-02-21 18:07:48,295  INFO [NotificationEventListener.launch:242] Main Notification Event

Listener thread launched...
2006-02-21 18:07:48,301  INFO [NotificationEventListener.launch:245] Notification Worker thread

com.scalix.sac.ubermgr.events.NotificationEventListener$WorkerThread-thread-0 launched...
2006-02-21 18:07:48,305  INFO [NotificationEventListener.launch:245] Notification Worker thread

com.scalix.sac.ubermgr.events.NotificationEventListener$WorkerThread-thread-1 launched...
2006-02-21 18:07:48,315  INFO [RESInitializer.initNotificationListener:214] RESMonitor-thread

Thread launched...
2006-02-21 18:07:48,773  INFO [SOAPDispatcherServlet.init:118] ====> CAA started, you may fire when

ready <====
2006-02-21 18:07:49,158  INFO [NotificationEventListener$WorkerThread.run:50] Event Notification:

register|http://wifone.de/res/RESDispatcher|LISTEN|300|wifone|wifone.de|10.0.0 from host:wifone.de
2006-02-21 18:07:49,203  INFO [NotificationEventListener$WorkerThread.run:50] Event Notification:

register|http://wifone.de/res/RESDispatcher|LISTEN|300|wifone|wifone.de|10.0.0 from host:wifone.de
2006-02-21 18:07:54,215  INFO [NotificationEventListener$WorkerThread.run:50] Event Notification:

heartbeat|http://wifone.de/res/RESDispatcher|LISTEN|300|wifone|wifone.de|10.0.0 from host:wifone.de
2006-02-21 18:08:48,395  INFO [RESMonitor.run:115] Server wifone.de up 59 secs

/opt/scalix-tomcat/logs/catalina.out:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:11 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina load
INFO: Initialization processed in 5717 ms
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:12 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService start
INFO: Starting service Catalina
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:12 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine start
INFO: Starting Servlet Engine: Apache Tomcat/5.0.28
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:12 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost start
INFO: XML validation disabled
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:12 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost getDeployer
INFO: Create Host deployer for direct deployment ( non-jmx )
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:12 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostDeployer install
INFO: Processing Context configuration file URL

file:/opt/scalix-tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/scalix-swa.xml
reading configuration @ /etc/opt/scalix/webmail/swa.properties
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:22 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostDeployer install
INFO: Processing Context configuration file URL

file:/opt/scalix-tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/scalix-webcal.xml
reading configuration @ /etc/opt/scalix/webmail/swa.properties
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:26 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostDeployer install
INFO: Processing Context configuration file URL

file:/opt/scalix-tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/manager.xml
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:27 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostDeployer install
INFO: Processing Context configuration file URL

file:/opt/scalix-tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/admin.xml
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:30 PM org.apache.struts.util.PropertyMessageResources <init>
INFO: Initializing, config='org.apache.struts.util.LocalStrings', returnNull=true
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:30 PM org.apache.struts.util.PropertyMessageResources <init>
INFO: Initializing, config='org.apache.struts.action.ActionResources', returnNull=true
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:32 PM org.apache.struts.util.PropertyMessageResources <init>
INFO: Initializing, config='org.apache.webapp.admin.ApplicationResources', returnNull=true
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:38 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostDeployer install
INFO: Processing Context configuration file URL

file:/opt/scalix-tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/scalix-admin.xml
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:41 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostDeployer install
INFO: Processing Context configuration file URL

file:/opt/scalix-tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/balancer.xml
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:41 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostDeployer install
INFO: Processing Context configuration file URL

file:/opt/scalix-tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/scalix-res.xml
RES: Initializing log4j using file /etc/opt/scalix/res/config/log4j.properties
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:44 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostDeployer install
INFO: Processing Context configuration file URL

file:/opt/scalix-tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/scalix-caa.xml
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:45 PM org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader validateJarFile
INFO: validateJarFile(/opt/scalix-tomcat/webapps/caa/WEB-INF/lib/j2ee.jar) - jar not loaded. See

Servlet Spec 2.3, section 9.7.2. Offending class: javax/servlet/Servlet.class
CAA: caa-root-directory is /etc/opt/scalix/caa/
CAA: Loaded web.xml init params
CAA: caa-config-directory is /etc/opt/scalix/caa/config
CAA: log4j-init-file is /etc/opt/scalix/caa/config/log4j.properties
CAA: caa-framework-init-file is /etc/opt/scalix/caa/config/framework-config.xml
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:48 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostDeployer install
INFO: Installing web application at context path  from URL file:/opt/scalix-tomcat/webapps/ROOT
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:48 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostDeployer install
INFO: Installing web application at context path /servlets-examples from URL

file:/opt/scalix-tomcat/webapps/servlets-examples
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:49 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostDeployer install
INFO: Installing web application at context path /webdav from URL

file:/opt/scalix-tomcat/webapps/webdav
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:49 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostDeployer install
INFO: Installing web application at context path /tomcat-docs from URL

file:/opt/scalix-tomcat/webapps/tomcat-docs
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:49 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostDeployer install
INFO: Installing web application at context path /jsp-examples from URL

file:/opt/scalix-tomcat/webapps/jsp-examples
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:52 PM org.apache.jk.common.ChannelSocket init
INFO: JK2: ajp13 listening on /127.0.0.1:8009
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:52 PM org.apache.jk.server.JkMain start
INFO: Jk running ID=0 time=69/305  config=/opt/scalix-tomcat/conf/jk2.properties
Feb 21, 2006 6:07:52 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina start
INFO: Server startup in 40992 ms

/optscalix-tomcat/logs/localhost_log.2006-02-.21.txt
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2006-02-21 18:07:41 StandardContext[/balancer]org.apache.webapp.balancer.BalancerFilter: init():

ruleChain: [org.apache.webapp.balancer.RuleChain:

[org.apache.webapp.balancer.rules.URLStringMatchRule: Target string: News / Redirect URL:

http://www.cnn.com], [org.apache.webapp.balancer.rules.RequestParameterRule: Target param name:

paramName / Target param value: paramValue / Redirect URL: http://www.yahoo.com],

[org.apache.webapp.balancer.rules.AcceptEverythingRule: Redirect URL: http://jakarta.apache.org]]
2006-02-21 18:07:49 StandardContext[/servlets-examples]ContextListener: contextInitialized()
2006-02-21 18:07:49 StandardContext[/servlets-examples]SessionListener: contextInitialized()
2006-02-21 18:07:50 StandardContext[/jsp-examples]ContextListener: contextInitialized()
2006-02-21 18:07:50 StandardContext[/jsp-examples]SessionListener: contextInitialized()