Upgrade Zimbra Network Edition Appliance to Open Source Edition

Now that my Zimbra Network Edition Appliance is all setup and ready to use, I’m going to convert it to a Zimbra Open Source Edition Server Appliance.  Once I am done with the “Upgrade” I’m going to increase the storage capacity of this VirtualBox appliance before putting into production.

I feel that I should make the disclaimer that I, personally, would never do this in a production environment. However, on a bare-bones appliance with no configuration, the end result of this process will yield a server that conforms to VMWares current best-practice configuration. “Current” being the operative word…

I’ll begin my logging into the console of the virtual machine and downloading the Zimbra open Source Edition package of the same version as my appliance. This one is running on Network Edition 8.0.3

wget http://files2.zimbra.com/downloads/8.0.3_GA/zcs-8.0.3_GA_5664.UBUNTU10_64.20130305090205.tgz

Now I’ll need to extract that package:

tar -zxvf zcs-8.0.3_GA_5664.UBUNTU10_64.20130305090205.tgz

It’s probably not necessary because the installation script should stop the zimbra services, but I’m going to issue the stop command as the zimbra user:

First switch tot he zimbra user
su – zimbra

And now issue the stop command

zmcontrol stop

Then exit back to the root user and change to the OSE installer directory

cd zcs-8.0.3_GA_5664.UBUNTU10_64.20130305090205

And now run the install script

./install.sh

The script will warn that you are removing some Zimbra Network Edition features. Type Y and enter to accept.

Follow the prompts to “Upgrade” Zimbra Open Source Edition on your appliance.

Go back to the zimbra user and start the services:

su – zimbra
zmcontrol start

You can also delete the installation files form the root users home directory now.

Now I’m going to increase the storage capacity of this Zimbra Open Source Edition VirtualBox Appliance.