Hello Betatesters!
UPDATE 02/07/2014: RELEASE CANDIDATE 1 is available for download! See post #16 for the changelog.
The package is available for download at:
The appropriate ZeXtras Chat Zimlet (v. 1.14) is also available for download at:
ZeXtras Chat Zimlet 1.14 for ZeXtras Suite 1.8.13RC
The highlights for this new version are:
* The ZeXtras Chat module has been completely rewritten and now supports the XMPP protocol and related clients.
* The ZeXtras Administration Zimlet has been rewritten from scratch. While you might not see a lot of "visual" differences, everything under the hood has been rewritten and improved (e.g. the ZeXtras Administration Zimlet is now fully asynchronous and supports caching, error handling has been dramatically improved and new warning and info messages have been added to improve the user experience).
* The ZeXtras CLI has been greatly improved. You can notice this when using multiple CLI commands in the same session, as the 'zxsuite' and 'zxmig' commands are now instanced per session and not per use.
Installation
The installation process for ZeXtras Suite is the same as usual.
Version 1.14 of the ZeXtras Chat Zimlet is only compatible with ZeXtras Suite 1.8.13 BETA, and vice versa.
The appropriate "com_zextras_chat.zip" must be manually downloaded and deployed, as version 1.14 of the ZeXtras Chat Zimlet is not available through the "Auto Deploy" feature.
As part of the ZeXtras Administration Zimlet rewrite, some things have been changed:
* All features have been removed from the "gear" dropdown menu and have been moved to the main view.
* In order to make it easier to find and restore deleted accounts, the "Restore" button in the ZxBackup tab of the ZeXtras Administration Zimlet has been changed to "Restore Deleted Account". This wizard is similar to the Restore on New Account one but will filter search results to only display deleted accounts. You can still run a Restore on New Account - and of course an Undelete Restore - from an account's preferences in the Zimbra Administration Console.
* Upon logging into the ZeXtras Administration Zimlet, an overview of all unread notifications will be displayed. This is part of an overhaul of the notification system that will be rolled out in ZeXtras Suite 1.8.13 and ZeXtras Suite 1.8.14.
* The "Core" tab has been redesigned to be easier to read. All modules can now be enabled or disabled straight from the GUI.
* Icons have been added to all buttons related to the "Active Sessions" and "Registered Devices" list. Furthermore, the "Details" dialogue of the Active Sessions list has been improved both visually and functionally.
* ZeXtras Admin's "Admin Log Path" setting has been removed from the ZeXtras Administration Zimlet. A "Show Log Path" button has been added instead, which will display the current log path and provide informations on how to change this setting via the ZeXtras CLI.
Now, let's talk about the feature all of you are expecting the most: XMPP!
ZeXtras Chat now features a full XMPP stack, so external clients can use such protocol to connect to Zextras Chat. The ZeXtras Chat Zimlet will still use our proprietary protocol.
Some details about this:
- ZeXtras Chat cannot be used on Zimbra 6.x (nothing new, but we are considering only enabling the XMPP part in such Zimbra versions).
- If you are running Zimbra 7.x you'll have to manually disable the Zimbra IM service in order to be able to use ZxChat's XMPP (run "zmprov ms `zmhostname` zimbraXMPPEnabled FALSE" as the zimbra user). This will be changed so that enabling ZxChat will disable Zimbra IM's XMPP, just like ZxMobile does with Zimbra Mobile on Network edition.
- At this stage, only Clients are able to connect to the XMPP server. Server-to-server interop is planned but it might not be released in ZeXtras Suite 1.8.13.
- Neither XMPP nor ZeXtras Chat Zimlet messages are saved in the "Chats" folder. FIXED IN BETA2.
- Enabling file logging for ZeXtras Chat will log both XMPP and ZeXtras Chat Zimlet messages. You can enable ZxChat file logging by running `zxsuite chat setProperty ZxChat_LogEnabled true`, the default logfile is /opt/zimbra/log/zxchat.log.
- Multiple sessions for the same user are supported but not yet synchronized, so a message sent from a client won't be visible on other clients or on the ZeXtras Chat Zimlet. FIXED IN BETA2.
- In case of a multiserver environment, all users must directly log into the mailboxd server they belong to. Login proxying will be added soon.
- XMPP ports are not proxied by the Zimbra Proxy service. We'll get around this, trust us.
Tested Clients:
* Kopete
* Psi
* Spark
* Empathy (and all clients based on the Telepathy lib)
* Pidgin (and all clients based on the LibPurple lib)
* Audium for Mac (as based on LibPurple lib)
When reporting an issue, please always specify the client you are using.
You are encouraged to provide feedbacks on clients which are not included in this list 
Ports and Security:
- Cleartext on port 5222 is supported
- TLS on port 5222 is supported
- SSL on port 5223 is supported
Reporting an Issue
In order to report an issue, simply reply to this thread. Please do not open any Support Ticket or Bugzilla report about this beta.
When reporting an issue, please remember to:
- Specify your browser or client and its version.
- Provide us a complete description of the issue and the steps to reproduce it.
- Specify whether your infrastructure is single server or multiserver, and in the latter case the number of mailboxd servers.
- Provide any related error (in either the mailbox.log, the sync.log or any other). You can email the full logs to @zextras.com" class="bbcode_email">community@zextras.com, but please remember to mention the URL of the specific post the logs are related to in the body of the message.
You can also get in touch with me through Skype/GTalk (if you don't have my contacts, drop me a PM), I'm usually online from 8am to 5pm GMT.
Docs and Infos
The ZeXtras Wiki has not been updated yet with all the changes in ZeXtras Suite 1.8.13, so feel free to ask any question about the new stuff.
DISCLAIMER
Needless to say, this build is not meant for production use. Please avoid installing ZeXtras Suite 1.8.13 BETA1 on any production server.