Zeta Alliance Weekly Call Summary

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Zeta Alliance Weekly Call Summary

Post by rleiker »

Hello Zimbra Community,

My name is Randy Leiker (Skyway Networks). Along with Mark Stone (Mission Critical Email) and David Merrill (Otelco), we have volunteered to begin posting summaries of the weekly Zeta Alliance (https://zetalliance.org) conference calls to the Zeta Alliance mailing list and the Zimbra Forum here. The goal is to increase involvement of the Zimbra community by inviting more participation in the weekly conference calls, discussion on the Zeta Alliance mailing list, or discussion on the Zimbra Forum here.

Since this is a new volunteer effort, we may experiment a bit with the format of this summary in the coming months to make this information useful for everyone interested in all things Zimbra related. Constructive feedback on this effort is welcome, as we are open to ideas.

The Zeta Alliance weekly conference calls every Tuesday are open to anyone using either the FreeConferenceCall.com VoIP app or via a dial-in number: https://www.freeconferencecall.com/wall/zetalliance

January 7, 2020 Conference Call Summary

New Agenda Format
Cine presented a new format for the weekly call agenda document, featuring these sections:

• Current Action Items (topics the Zeta Alliance is currently working on)
• Today’s Topics (topics that we discussed on today’s conference call)
• Last Week’s Topics (topics that we discussed during last week’s conference call)
• Past Topics (topics discussed 2 or more weeks ago)

As usual each call agenda will be posted here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uUU ... Ww2fY/edit

Zimbra 8.8.15 Patch 5
Barry mentioned that the Java version has changed to Java 13 in Zimbra 8.8.15 Patch 5. With this change, it has created problems for Zimbra installs with out-of-date Zimbra extensions (jar files in /opt/zimbra/lib/ext, including OpenZAL from Zextras). Out-of-date Zimbra extensions, after installing Patch 5, will result in varying problems such as:
• “NETWORK ERROR” messages
• No login screen for the Zimbra Web Client
• The Zimbra Admin UI may be unavailable
• zmprov CLI commands may not work

Barry recommends ensuring that you have the latest Zimbra extensions installed before installing Patch 5.

New Zimbra Article Repo
Cine described a new article repository for adding Zimbra related topics. Cine plans to write an introductory article that will outline the basic steps needed for anyone in the community to post content to the article repo. The intent is to use this repo as a convenient location for storing helpful Zimbra tips that come up during the weekly conference calls.

Sharing Calendars for Mobile Sync
Noah asked about the best way to share calendars for syncing on mobile devices via the Zimbra Web Client. Cine shared some helpful tips regarding how to share calendars for mobile sync and sharing permission pitfalls to avoid.

Clean-up of Old Call Topics
Cine asked everyone on the conference call to review the January 7th agenda and to strike through items that are no longer current issues so further clean-up of the agenda document can take place for later calls.
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Re: Zeta Alliance Weekly Call Summary

Post by rleiker »

Hello Zimbra Community,

Here is a summary of this week’s conference call. A few brief reminders:
January 14, 2020 Conference Call Summary

New Zeta Alliance Article Repo
Cine reported that he has the new Zeta Alliance article repo (TravisCI) up and running. He is currently working on finishing the first article describing how to post to the new article repo, along with establishing organization for new articles. A URL for the new article repo will be provided in a future call summary.

John W. asked if the new article repo is a replacement for Zimbra Wiki & Zimbra documentation. Cine explained that the Wiki has been difficult to add or edit due to legacy permissions issues, so the new article repo is intended as a supplement with the goal of eventually merging information in the new article repo back in to the Zimbra Wiki & documentation later on.

Zimbra Wiki Update Requests
John H. suggested that updates to the Zimbra Wiki can be requested by posting a note on the Zeta Alliance mailing list where one or more Zimbra employees will try to keep a watch for these requests. Alternatively, for customers with support contracts with Zimbra, Wiki updates can also be requested by opening support requests.

Zimlet Development and Zimbra Wiki Updates
Barry reported that:
Misinformation About Zimbra 8.8.15 & Zimbra X
John W. reported that the #zimbra IRC channel was being used by some to distribute misleading information about 8.8.15 already being end-of-life & no longer supported, which requires an immediate upgrade to Zimbra X when it becomes available, which is untrue. John suggested that more messaging from Synacor about the road map and status of 8.8.15 and a Zimbra X would be of help in minimizing misinformation that is being spread. Zimbra 8.8.15 is currently supported through the end of 2023, as described near the bottom of this page: https://www.zimbra.com/support/support- ... lifecycle/

Mark S. said that he too has also had some of his customers reach out to him asking if Zimbra 8.8.15 is still supported, and if they should hold on any Zimbra license purchases until Zimbra X is available. Mark agreed with John W. that Synacor should consider doing more to push out more guidance about the Zimbra version roadmap.

Synacor Staff Changes
John H. confirmed that Rene Otto (former Zimbra product manager) left Synacor in late December for a new post with another organization. Steve Davey is the interim product manager. John said that he has been told that more Zimbra product guidance is expected to be coming out by the end of next month (February).

Zimbra 8.8.15 Patch 6 Released January 13th
https://wiki.zimbra.com/wiki/Zimbra_Releases/8.8.15/P6

Personas bug in 8.8.15 Patch 5
Mark S. reported that the send-as feature for personas in 8.8.15 P5 and possibly P6 seems to be broken, likely due to the upgrade to OpenJDK 13 in P5. Barry suggested a workaround for this issue may be to downgrade the OpenJDK version, but said that he couldn’t personally reproduce this reported bug in 8.8.15 P5. For more info: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=67507&hilit=broken+personas

Zimbra Connect Bug in 8.8.15 Patch 4 and 5
Mark S. reported a bug with the auto-complete feature when creating a new conversation. Cine said this bug is fixed in 8.8.15 P6.

Phishing Training Tools
John W. suggested some resources for anti-phishing training for end users:
https://phishingquiz.withgoogle.com/
https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/busines ... z/phishing
Last edited by rleiker on Tue Jan 21, 2020 8:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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January 21, 2020 Zeta Alliance Weekly Call Summary

Post by rleiker »

Hello Zimbra Community,

Here is a summary of this week’s conference call. A few brief reminders: January 21, 2020 Conference Call Summary

SpamAssassin DKIM Issue in Zimbra
Mark S. reported that in his zimbra.log, he found messages triggering the DKIM_INVALID test in SpamAssassin, which he believed did have a valid DKIM hash. After research online, he found suggestions indicating this may happen if some Perl module dependencies are missing or unavailable to SpamAssassin. He said that he is having difficulty getting a list of Perl modules available to Zimbra, even when running as the Zimbra user. He is going to research this further. Randy L. added that he found while troubleshooting an unrelated issue with zmstat that some parts of Zimbra appear to use the version of Perl installed with the OS, while other parts of Zimbra seem to use the Perl version that ships with Zimbra.

Update On New Zeta Alliance Article Repo
Cine reported that testing for the new article repo is going well. He plans to push the repo in to production in a few days. He has finished writing a how-to article describing the steps needed to post an article, which will be viewable soon.

Retrieving A Log Of Deleted Mailbox Items
David M. asked about retrieving a report for one of his clients where the client wanted a list of all deleted mail items from a former employee’s mailbox. Several suggestions were offered by those on the call, including restoring from backups (which is limited by backup retention settings), scanning for deleted items in Outlook PST files, reviewing mailbox logs for mentions of deleted mail items. Several agreed that it is difficult, if not impossible to recover this information afterwords, when either the built-in Zimbra archiving feature or an external archiving service, such as Smarsh, was not previously requested by client.

Update On Personas issue in 8.8.15 Patch 5 and 6
As a follow-up to last week’s call on this topic, John H said a hot fix for this bug is now available for Zimbra Network edition customers by opening a support case with Zimbra. He also said this hot fix is expected to be included in the next scheduled Zimbra patch. Gary C. reported that he recently installed the hot fix, but that it did not work for him, so he opened a Zimbra support case. John H said he will review the case to obtain more details.

Zimbra Roadmap Updates
Marc G asked about the status of road map updates from Zimbra. John H said that he has been told that official news about Zimbra’s road map will be coming out within the first quarter of 2020, but could offer no further details at this time.
Last edited by rleiker on Wed Jan 22, 2020 3:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: January 21, 2020 Zeta Alliance Weekly Call Summary

Post by L. Mark Stone »

rleiker wrote:Hello Zimbra Community,

<snip>

SpamAssassin DKIM Issue in Zimbra
Mark S. described an issue with a Perl module shipped with Zimbra that relates to identifying invalid DKIM records. He reports there appears to be a Perl module dependency that is missing from the Zimbra distribution, which is making it problematic to adjust the SpamAssassin scoring for valid versus invalid DKIM hashes. He said that he is having difficulty getting a list of Perl modules available to Zimbra, even when running as the Zimbra user. He is going to look further at environmental shell variables that are set when switching to the Zimbra user as he investigate the issue further. Randy L. added that he has found while troubleshooting an unrelated issue with zmstat that some parts of Zimbra appear to use the version of Perl installed with the OS, while other parts of Zimbra seem to use the Perl version that ships with Zimbra.

<snip>
Hi Randy,

Thanks for doing these summaries.

Just to clarify, I indicated that in my zimbra.log I found a few emails which triggered the DKIM_INVALID test in SpamAssassin, and where I believed the sender's DKIM was likely to be valid, so I was trying to dig a little deeper. I then found via a Google search a poster indicating that this test will fire if DKIM is valid but the appropriate perl module for DKIM was not present/available to SpamAssassin. So, I asked the group for help in inventorying the Perl modules that Zimbra installs. I didn't get an answer, but got some suggestions so agreed to do more homework.

But to be clear I wasn't saying Zimbra is shipping SpamAssassin configured to do DKIM tests without bundling the required Perl modules; only that I was having trouble getting a list of Perl modules shipped with Zimbra.

The end game is to consider upping the default score for the DKIM_INVALID test, as well as to explore writing some custom SpamAssassin rules, the execution of which may have other Perl module dependencies.

All the best,
Mark
___________________________________
L. Mark Stone
Mission Critical Email - Zimbra VAR/BSP/Training Partner https://www.missioncriticalemail.com/
AWS Certified Solutions Architect-Associate
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Re: Zeta Alliance Weekly Call Summary

Post by rleiker »

Thanks for the clarification Mark. I joined the call today a few minutes after you had started discussing that topic, so I was trying to quickly jot down notes on the topic and clearly got that mixed up a bit. I'll send a corrected version of this out to the Zeta Alliance mailing list too.
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Re: Zeta Alliance Weekly Call Summary

Post by rleiker »

Hello Zimbra Community,

Here is a summary of this week’s conference call. A few brief reminders: January 28, 2020 Conference Call Summary

Update on Zeta Alliance Article Repo
Cine reported that the new article repo is ready, but he needs Barry D’s. help with ensuring pull requests for the new repo work correctly, before making the repo live.

Supported Exchange to Zimbra Migration Tools
Mark S. asked about Zimbra supported Exchange to ZCS migration tools. He’s migrating a customer from Exchange 2007 server to Zimbra 8.8.15. John H. said that Microsoft has been continuously changing their security controls related to what can be synced with Exchange, which has led to problems keeping up with their changing Exchange connection protocol for accessing data in Exchange. For this reason, John H. said Zimbra now only supports imports from PST files only, rather than from Exchange directly. Mark G. suggested exporting all of the Exchange mailboxes to PST files using a PowerShell script, then using the Zimbra PST Migration Wizard (https://www.zimbra.com/downloads/zimbra ... ion-tools/) to import the PST files.

Changes to Authenticating Zimbra Users With Active Directory
Mark S. reported reading a forum posting (viewtopic.php?f=15&t=67633&p=295515&hil ... on#p295515) suggesting that Microsoft will be requiring security changes in a March 2020 Windows update that could break AD integration with Zimbra.

Update On Personas Issue in 8.8.15 Patch 5 and 6
John H. reported that the change introduced in 8.8.15 P5 that resulted in the send-as feature for personas to break, has been rolled back with a revision to 8.8.15 P6 which is now live on the Zimbra Yum/Apt repos. The 8.8.15 P6 revision essentially removes the personas change that was introduced in 8.8.15 P5. There were also two hot fixes for this issue. The first hot fix did not work. The second hot fix that currently appears to fix the issue is expected to be included in 8.8.15 P7. Those who installed the second hot fix, which was previously only available only by opening a support case with Zimbra, do not need to re-apply the revised version of 8.8.15 P6. The 8.8.15 P6 hotfix release notes are located at: https://wiki.zimbra.com/index.php/Zimbr ... /P6-Hotfix

WebRTC Bug in Zimbra Connect Affecting Firefox 72.x
Cine reported that Firefox 72.x has a bug in WebRTC that prevents screen sharing and possibly video calling using Zimbra Connect from working as expected. He said that Firefox beta 73 has been confirmed to fix the issue. Chrome does not appear to be affected.
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