Installing and configuring the Zimbra email appliance

Download the appliance

The Zimbra appliance is a download from the Zimbra website, and installs as an OVF (Open Virtualization Format) machine. This means that the virtual machine will be downloaded directly to the vSphere infrastructure (either an individual ESXi host or via the vSphere Client connecting to vCenter Server).

Trial version option

Basic information for the email appliance is shown here, and this option I’ve selected is the trial version, which is very small. The download is 2.4 GB, and may take some time depending on the Internet connection.

Pick a deployment option

Three deployment options are available for the appliance. The trial size is one virtual CPU and 2 GB of RAM, the midsize is two virtual CPUs with 4 GB of RAM scaled to 500 users, and the large version is two CPUs with 8 GB of RAM for approximately 1000 users.

Setting passwords

After a few basic questions (such as where the virtual machine will reside in the cluster and IP configuration), the installation options are presented. This screen allows passwords to be set for the appliance as it is deployed locally.

Once the options are completed, a summary is displayed. The passwords are displayed in clear text; while I don’t like that; it is handy to screen-shot this step for the initial setup. The OVF will now download, which may take a while.

Login URL and port info

After the OVF is downloaded, power on the virtual machine. Here, the opening screen is displayed. Note the login URL with port 5480 specified and the IP address of the appliance.

Logging in

Open a web browser and log in as the username vmware with the password set in the OVF deployment process. After logging in, the initial status and administration page are displayed.

Create a test mailbox

To create a test mailbox, click on the Zimbra Administration tab then click new account. Rich data such as phone number, address, and more are available to be populated in the new user wizard.

Now, the newly created user can log in via the mail URL with an SSL connection. The webmail interface is that easy! It would be a good time to poke into the administration section of the management portal and configure some additional email accounts. Here are a couple of points to remember to get started:

• Create a DNS record for the appliance.
• Ensure that the DNS suffix for the appliance is not in use, yet can be resolved internally.
• Ensure any mail handler records (MX) can be leveraged to point to the Zimbra appliance if external mail needs to be received.

The default configuration allows for an internal mail transfer to be used, so an application that sends email over SMTP port 25 can leverage the Zimbra appliance to send mail. Overall, this appliance is incredibly easy to get up and running.