En/3.0/Installation
Generally speaking, Zentyal is meant to be installed exclusively on one (real or virtual) machine.
However, this does not prevent you from installing other applications, that are not managed
through the Zentyal interface. These applications must be manually installed and configured.
Zentyal runs on top of Ubuntu(1) server edition, always on LTS (Long Term Support) (2) versions. LTS has longer support periods: five years instead of three.
You can install Zentyal in two different ways:
- using the Zentyal installer (recommended option),
- using an existing Ubuntu Server Edition installation.
In the second case the official Zentyal repositories must be added and
installation continued by installing the modules you are interested in (3).
However, in the first case the installation and deployment process is easier as all dependencies reside on a single CD or USB. Another benefit of using the CD or USB is to have a graphical environment that allows the use of a web interface from the server itself.
Ubuntu's official documentation includes a brief introduction to installing and configuring Zentyal (4).
community, focused on laptops, PCs and servers: http://www.ubuntu.com/.
it is recommended you consult the Ubuntu guide: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases.
http://trac.zentyal.org/wiki/Document/Documentation/InstallationGuide.
Zentyal installer
The Zentyal installer is based on the Ubuntu Server installer. Those already familiar with this installer will also find the installation process very similar.
To start with, you choose the installation language, in this example English is chosen.
You can install Zentyal by using the default mode which deletes all disk contents and creates the partitions required by Zentyal by using LVM(5) or you can choose the expert mode which allows customised partitioning. Most users should choose the default option unless they are installing on a server with RAID software or they want to create special partitioning according to specific requirements.
In the next step choose the language for your system interface. To set the language, you are asked for your country, in this example the United States is chosen.
You can use automatic detection for setting the keyboard: a few questions are asked to ensure the model you are using is correct. Otherwise, you can select the model manually by choosing No.
If you have multiple network adapters, the installer will ask you for your primary one , the one that will be used to access the Internet during the installation. The installer will try to auto configure it using DHCP. If you only have one interface, you will not see this question
Now choose a name for your server: this name is important for host identification within the network. The DNS service will automatically register this name. Samba will also use this domain name, as you will see later.
Next, the installer will ask you for the administrator account. This user will have administration privileges and in addition, the same user will be used to access the Zentyal interface.
In the next step you are asked for the user password. It is important to note that the user defined earlier, can access, using the same password, both system (via SSH or local login) and the Zentyal web interface. Therefore you must be really careful to choose a secure password (more than 12 characters including letters, numbers and symbols).
Here, insert the password again to verify it.
In the next step you are asked for your time zone. It is automatically configured depending on the location chosen earlier, but you can modify it in case this is incorrect.
The installation progress bar will now appear. You must wait for the basic system to install. This process can take approximately 20 minutes, depending on the server.
Once installation of the base system is completed, you can eject the installation CD and restart the server.
Now your Zentyal system is installed! A graphical interface in a web browser is started and you are able to access the administrative interface. The first boot will take an extra time while it configures core Zentyal modules. After the first restart, the graphical environment was automatically started, from now on you must authenticate before it begins.
To start configuring Zentyal profiles or modules, you must insert the username and password indicated during the installation process. Any user you add later to the sudo group can access the Zentyal interface and has sudo privileges in the system.
management in http://www.howtoforge.com/linux_lvm.
Initial configuration
When you access the web interface for the first time, a configuration wizard will start. To start with, you can choose the functionality for your system. To simplify this selection, in the upper part of the interface you will find the pre-designed server profiles.
Zentyal profiles available for installation:
Zentyal Gateway:Zentyal will act as a gateway of the local network, offering secure and controlled access to Internet.
Zentyal Infrastructure:Zentyal manages the infrastructure of the local network with basic services such as DHCP, DNS, NTP, and so on.
Zentyal Office:Zentyal can act as server for shared resources of the local network: files, printers, calendars, contacts, user profiles and groups.
Zentyal Unified Communications:Zentyal can act as a communications center for the company, handling e-mail, instant messaging and VoIP.
You can select any number of profiles to assign multiple roles to your Zentyal Server.
We can also install a manual set of services just clicking on their icons, without having to comply with any specific profile. Another possibility is to install a profile and then manually add the required extra packages.
We are going to develop the Infrastructure profile in this example. The wizards you will see during the installation depend on the packages you have selected to install in this step.
Once you have finished the selection, only the necessary additional packages will be installed. This selection is not definitive and later you can install and uninstall any of the Zentyal modules via the software management tools.
The system will begin the installation process of required modules and you will be shown a progress bar, as well as some slides offering a brief introduction to core Zentyal functions and the commercial packages.
Once the installation process has been completed, the configuration wizard will configure the new modules and then you are asked some questions.
First of all, you are asked for information regarding your network configuration. Then you need to define each network interface as internal or external, in other words; whether it will be used to connect to an external network such as Internet, or to a local network. Strict firewall policies will be applied to all the traffic coming in through external network interfaces.
Next, you have to choose the local domain associated with our server, if you have configured the external interface(s) using DHCP it may be filled automatically. As said before, our hostname will be automatically added as a host of this domain. The authentication domain for the users will also take this name. You can configure additional domains but this is the only one that will come pre-configured to provide all the information that our LAN clients need for the network authentication protocol (Kerberos).
The last wizard will allow you to register your server. In case you already have registered, you just need to enter your credentials. If you still don't have registered the server, you can do it now using this form.
Both ways, the form will request a name for your server. This is the name that will identify your Zentyal server in the Zentyal Remote interface.
Once you have answered these questions, you will continue to configure all the installed modules.
The installer will inform you when the installation is finished.
Just click the button and access the Dashboard: your Zentyal server is now ready!
Hardware requirements
Zentyal runs on standard x86 or x86_64 (64-bit) hardware. However, you must ensure that Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 LTS (kernel 2.6.32) supports the hardware you are going to use. You should be able to check this information directly from the vendor. Otherwise you can check Ubuntu Linux Hardware Compatibility List (6), list of servers certified for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (7) or by searching in Google.
The Zentyal server hardware requirements depend on the modules you install. How many users will use the services and what their usage patterns are.
Some modules have low resource requirements, like Firewall, DHCP or DNS. Others, like Mailfilter or Antivirus need more RAM memory and CPU. Proxy and File sharing modules benefit from faster disks due their intensive I/O usage.
A RAID setup gives a higher level of security against hard disk failures and increased speed on read operations.
If you use Zentyal as a gateway or firewall, you will need at least two network cards, but if you use it as a standalone server, one network card is enough. If you have two or more Internet connections, use one network card for each router or connect them to one network card keeping them in the same subnet. VLAN is also an option.
Also, it is always recommended that a UPS is deployed along with the server. For further information see nut-chapter
For a general purpose server with normal usage patterns, these are the recommended minimum requirements:
Zentyal Profile
Users
CPU
Memory
Disk
Network cards
Gateway
<50
P4 or equivalent
2G
80G
2 or more
50 or more
Xeon Dual core or equivalent
4G
160G
2 or more
Infrastructure
<100
P4 or equivalent
1G
80G
1
100 or more
P4 or equivalent
2G
160G
1
Office
<100
P4 or equivalent
1G
250G
1
100 or more
Xeon Dual core or equivalent
2G
500G
1
Communications
<100
Xeon Dual core or equivalent
4G
250G
1
100 or more
Xeon Dual core or equivalent
8G
500G
1
Hardware requirements table
When combining more than one profile, you should think in terms of higher requirements. If you are deploying Zentyal in an environment with more than 100 users, a more detailed analysis should be done including usage patterns, benchmarking and considering high availability strategies.
