Install Zimbra LDAP: 6 Easy Steps, Avoid Mistakes

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To install Zimbra LDAP as its own server, you answer "no" to every package except zimbra-ldap, fix the domain name when the installer complains about the MX record, and then set the passwords in the zmsetup menu. This article is a cleaned-up version of a real Zimbra 8.6.0 LDAP installation on a RHEL 6 style host for a multi-server lab. The installer output is the author's own; the old screenshots showed one weak password reused everywhere, which is removed here, and the checks are compared with the Zimbra Administrator Guide (read on 2026-11-01).

Scope note: nothing was re-run for this rewrite, and Zimbra 8.6 is old. Use the download page of your current release before you copy a version number.

Contents

Order of the install: why you install Zimbra LDAP first

In a multi-server layout the directory comes first. The mailbox server and the MTA server both ask for the LDAP host name and its admin password during their own setup, so the LDAP host must exist and resolve in DNS before you start the others. The lab used ldap.huuphan.local, mailbox.huuphan.local and mta.huuphan.local. The next steps are in the mailbox server install and the MTA server install, and the general plan is in the multi-server overview.

Check DNS before you install Zimbra LDAP

The only error in the whole session came from DNS, so test it first. These are plain checks, not output from the lab: hostname -f must print the fully qualified name of the host (ldap.huuphan.local), getent hosts ldap.huuphan.local must return its address, and dig MX huuphan.local should return the mail host of the domain. If the MX query is empty, the installer shows the warning from the figure. You can continue in a lab, but fix the record before real mail flows. A short checklist helps when you install Zimbra LDAP on a new machine: a fixed IP address, the host name in /etc/hosts, a free port 389, and enough time to write down every password.

Download the package and choose zimbra-ldap only

On the new host, run these commands as root. The download is the 8.6.0 build for RHEL 6 that the original post used:

wget -c https://files.zimbra.com/downloads/8.6.0_GA/zcs-8.6.0_GA_1153.RHEL6_64.20141215151155.tgz -O zimbra-8.6.0_GA.tgz
tar zxvf zimbra-8.6.0_GA.tgz
cd zimbra-8.6.0_GA
./install.sh

The script checked for an old installation (all packages reported NOT FOUND), asked to accept the license, and found the prerequisites. Then it lists the packages. To install Zimbra LDAP only, answer Y for zimbra-ldap and N for logger, MTA, dnscache, SNMP, store, apache, spell, memcached and proxy. The installer adds zimbra-core by itself, so the list of installed packages was core and ldap. Answering Y to the final "Continue?" question removes any existing /opt/zimbra, as the output "Removing /opt/zimbra" shows.

Install Zimbra LDAP: only zimbra-ldap selected, then the MX record warning and the domain prompt
The package questions to install Zimbra LDAP alone, and the DNS warning that follows (real installer output).

The MX warning when you install Zimbra LDAP

After the RPM packages, the installer printed DNS ERROR resolving MX for ldap.huuphan.local and suggested that the domain name has an MX record. It then proposed ldap.huuphan.local as the mail domain to create, which is a host name, not a domain. The author answered Y to re-enter and typed huuphan.local. The mail domain should be the domain of your addresses, not the name of the LDAP server, and in production it needs a real MX record in DNS. In the lab the warning was accepted because no mail was delivered yet.

Set the LDAP passwords in the zmsetup menu of the Zimbra LDAP install

The main menu opens with the options for the LDAP host. The author set the common LDAP admin password (menu 1, item 4) and then six more passwords in the LDAP menu (menu 2, items 4 to 9): the LDAP root user, the replication user, the Postfix user, the Amavis user, the Nginx user and the BES searcher. The installer proposes a random value in brackets for each one, so you can accept it. The old post typed the same short number into all seven, which is a mistake: choose strong values and store them in a password manager.

Press a to apply. After you save the configuration to a file (/opt/zimbra/config.2900 in the lab) and confirm, the installer creates the CA and the LDAP SSL certificate, initialises the directory, sets the replication, Postfix, Amavis, Nginx and BES passwords, creates the server entry for ldap.huuphan.local, creates the domain huuphan.local and starts the servers. It also printed "Skipping creation of default domain GAL sync account - existing install detected".

Check the result after you install Zimbra LDAP

Switch to the zimbra user. The old post printed every LDAP setting with this command:

zmlocalconfig -s | grep 'ldap_' | egrep 'password|url'

It listed the URLs (ldap_master_url = ldap://ldap.huuphan.local:389 and ldap_url with the same value) and, in clear text, every password. Do not paste that output in a ticket or a blog. The guide uses a narrower command to collect the values that another server needs: zmlocalconfig -s ldap_master_url zimbra_ldap_user zimbra_ldap_userdn zimbra_ldap_password, whose bind DN is uid=zimbra,cn=admins,cn=zimbra. To test the directory, bind with that DN:

ldapsearch -D "uid=zimbra,cn=admins,cn=zimbra" -x -H ldap://ldap.huuphan.local:389 -W

The command asks for the LDAP password, then prints entries. The guide gives 389 as the default LDAP port; you can check that the port is reachable from the mailbox host before you install it. When you install Zimbra LDAP successfully, note the host name and the admin password: the mailbox and MTA setups need both.

Common mistakes when you install Zimbra LDAP

  • Entering the LDAP host name where the installer asks for the mail domain.
  • Using one weak password for all seven accounts.
  • Starting the mailbox install before the directory answers on port 389.
  • Printing passwords with zmlocalconfig -s into a shared document.

If a service stays down after the install, see Zimbra some services are not running; to start over, uninstall Zimbra first.

FAQ

Can I install Zimbra LDAP on the same host as the mailbox? The lab did not test it; this session used a dedicated LDAP host, and a single-server install is covered in the Administrator Guide.

Do I need a replica? Not to start. The installer created a replication user in this session, but a replica server was not part of this lab.

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