Mini-review Zimbra 6.0 RC1 GunsNRoses

Much time has passed since I wrote my last article about Zimbra. Zimbra ZCS 6.0 beta1 has already been released, followed by beta2.

The new version of the popular mail server was named in honor of the American rock band of the 80s “GunsNRoses”. Actually, as I said in the last article, one of the most important part of the project for switching an office to an open source software is the company's own mail server, which will provide the company's main business process — electronic document circulation. In addition, I wanted to get the most from mail, namely general calendars, tasks, documents, chats, web interface, etc. In a word, something like a free Exchange server))
')


According to official data, the final version of ZIMBRA CS 6.0 GunsNRoses will be released on August 31, 2009. There is not much left.


The other day, the developers have pleased us with the release of RC1. Actually I would like to talk about it ... and write some mini review of the mail system. We will not dig deeply; I will describe only all sorts of trivia and system functionality.

I will test this whole thing on Debian Lenny. Although officially it is not yet supported, but judging by this reference here, work on this is underway (http://bugzilla.zimbra.com/show_bug.cgi?id=34921). I still had to edit the installation script.

About the installation, you can read in my last article.
Standard installation, no surprises .... of the components delivered:

zimbra-core
zimbra-ldap
zimbra-logger
zimbra-mta
zimbra-snmp
zimbra-store
zimbra-apache
zimbra-spell

Admin Section:

I did not notice any special changes here. Everything is the same as in version 5 of Zimbra. Pretty familiar and easy interface. The only thing I noticed was a few errors in the translation of the admin panel ... but these are minor details.



There are also problems with displaying the page structure in Internet Explorer 8. Everything is in order in Firefox.

Service Classes and Domain Policies.

Here I would like to clarify the functionality of these sections. Actually, like in Exchange, you can create group policies here that can be assigned either to all users or to some users. These policies allow you to simplify the configuration of mailboxes.



A service class is a policy that provides detailed mailbox settings. For example, you can restrict all users to use tasks, chat ... or you can assign everyone a common font for writing letters. Well, and so on.



And in the domain properties, you can configure only the technical settings of the boxes of this domain ...
I advise before creating users, first create your own (or change the ready) service class, and only then add users.

Servers section

Here you can configure the mail server services, as well as some protocols.

Zimbra Email Client and Web Client.

In order to fully use the Zimbra mail server, you must use either the Web client or the native Zimbra Desktop client that can be downloaded from the manufacturer’s website. There is also an option to try ... mozilla thunderbird with the Zimbra add-in.

Fully - means shared calendars, tasks, diary, documents, access ... etc.



I plan to install Zimbra Desktop client in my company.

I would like to say about the disadvantages of this client:

• First, Zimbra Desktop does not exist for multi-user use.
• Secondly, there are problems installing the client to users with user rights.
• Thirdly, when the client starts, for some reason it breaks into the Internet (at least I had it). And if the user does not have Internet, or it is distributed through a proxy, then the client does not start.
• Fourth, the client does not support chat support with users.
The rest is a good customer ...
I can't say anything about the Web client, everything is beautiful and works well ...

Using Zimbra in a corporate environment:

Here I would like to elaborate on the use of Zimbra in the company.
In general, Zimbra has almost all the functionality of MS Exchange Server. There is a check for mail viruses out of the box, there are general calendars, common tasks and so on.

The functionality of the joint work itself is implemented very well. For example, each user can share any mail folder (for example, Inbox) for any other user.



Or you can chat in a corporate chat with users - friends, so as not to send 100 letters per day.

But against this background, many unfinished trifles emerge. I can not list them all ... but I am sure that the developers will fix everything.

I look forward to new versions of Zimbra Desktop, because It seems a bit unmodified ... there is no multi-user support ... no chat rooms, zymelets installed on the server are not installed in the client, and so on.

There are also complaints about the corporate signature of users. Our company management is very attentive to the signatures of users. It should be the same for everyone, with personal data. Of course, I didn’t dig deep into Zimbra. But I was a little strained by the fact that with the help of service classes it is impossible for everyone to set up a common mail template ... Also, the tags $ {RECIPIENT_NAME} and $ {RECIPIENT_ADDRESS} do not work in the signature.

Well, perhaps that's all I wanted to write.
Complete innovations Zimbra CS 6.0 can be seen HERE