Moving Scalix install to new server

[jadunga]

First, I'd like to commend the Scalix team for a great product. We are an Exchange shop and getting ready to move to Scalix. Our first task was to do a proof of concept for senior management which is going very well except for one issue. The very very old server we installed Scalix on cannot handle the load.

The server is a P3 850Mhz with 512mb memory and 30GB. Scalix is installed as a single server on Fedora Core 4.

For some reason, SWA can only support three concurrent users before all the memory is used up. Java is configured to reserver 256mb of memory.

We would like to move our install to a more powerful machine without losing our configuration which already has a lot of domains and users configured including about 1GB of mail in the store.

Any advice is much appreciated!

sally

[jonny]

Hi Sally

You *should* just be able to do a fresh install of scalix on the new machine and then move you /var/opt/scalix folder across using scp or rsync. Most of the "settings" (if you have done lots of customisation) are kept in /opt/scalix and opt/scalix-tomcat - again these should just be copied over to the fresh install and you should be good to go!

YMMV.

[ScalixSupport]

Yes, scp or rsyncing /var/opt/scalix to the new server gives you your existing mailboxes etc. Make sure permissions are maintained. If you move that data over first, before running the installation, the installer will detect that the data is there.

You would be doing yourself an enormous favor if your new server has the same name as your old server. Otherwise read up on sxmodfqdn in the admin guide and/or the man page. Also ommodmnmp.

If you've made any changes to the following files you will want to copy them over too:

/etc/opt/scalix/webmail/swa.properties

/etc/opt/scalix/res/config/res.properties

/etc/opt/scalix/res/config/krblogin.conf

/etc/opt/scalix/caa/scalix.res/config/*

/etc/opt/scalix/caa/config/*

Regards,
Don

[jadunga]

I'm happy to report that everything went smoothly though I had to do install Scalix twice.

First Attempt: Moved /var/opt/scalix from the old server. Installed Scalix (it detected the message store) but SWA and the SAC wouldn't load. The logs referred to some PDL as being a duplicate.

Second Attempt: Uninstalled Scalix, including message store. Rebooted new machine (which had the same name (FQDN), just different IP. Installed Scalix successfully, tested it to make sure everything was running as expected. Then stopped Scalix and Scalix-Tomcat. Renamed /etc/opt/scalix, /opt/scalix, /opt/scalix-tomcat and /var/opt/scalix and replaced them with files from the old server using rsync. Started Scalix and Scalix-Tomcat, everything worked as expected, no data loss. SWA seems to be much happier with the new hardware - P4 2.8GHz, 2GB ram and 250gb HD.

I think this procedure should be included in one of the manuals unless I just missed it...

Thanks to Jonny and Don for helping me. I encourage other uses who have to migrate to new hardware to share their experiences with the community.

Sally

[kmcelwain]

For the beginners out there I used this command
o configure offline files to synchronize when a network connection becomes active:

rsync -v -a root@oldmailIP:/etc/opt/scalix /ect/opt

I like seeing what's going on hence the -v (Verbose)

and as far as I can tell -a is the super switch. Should I have used anything different?

Or am I going to have to do a chown -R after all of this?

Thanks....other than that it's flying My opt/scalix folder is 13GB

[dvichas]

does this work if i'm moving from a 10.x server to a 11.x server? if not what is the best way to move my users and mail store to a new server if i'm also doing an upgrade?

Yes, scp or rsyncing /var/opt/scalix to the new server gives you your existing mailboxes etc. Make sure permissions are maintained. If you move that data over first, before running the installation, the installer will detect that the data is there.

You would be doing yourself an enormous favor if your new server has the same name as your old server. Otherwise read up on sxmodfqdn in the admin guide and/or the man page. Also ommodmnmp.

If you've made any changes to the following files you will want to copy them over too:

/etc/opt/scalix/webmail/swa.properties

/etc/opt/scalix/res/config/res.properties

/etc/opt/scalix/res/config/krblogin.conf

/etc/opt/scalix/caa/scalix.res/config/*

/etc/opt/scalix/caa/config/*

Regards,
Don

[kanderson]

It works fine. 11 will detect the mail store, and move it to the new location and then upgrade it.

The -z switch for rsync will compress everything across the wire and (usually) give better performance.

Kev.