Managing SSL certificates in Zimbra can be tricky. The UI is buggy and when the cert expires it takes down the server due to the server’s services inability to talk to itself. Looking for help gives varying results depending on your Google search which will lead you down various troubleshooting paths.
After endless looking I did find the steps which I would recommend for quickly updating the SSL cert:
- Renew and download your cert
- Unzip and stick on an FTP server
- Log in to your Zimbra box as root
- FTP the 2 files to your server: gd_bundle.crt (intermediate and the root CA) and your server_name.crt
- Run the following command: /opt/zimbra/bin/zmcertmgr deploycrt comm example.com.crt gd_bundle.crt
- Pray you don’t get errors…and you shouldn’t
- su zimbra
- zmcontrol restart
You should now be good. I got this perl of wisdom from comments on this page: http://jamesreubenknowles.com/adding-a-godaddy-ssl-certificate-to-zimbra-7-1360
Look at the comment from “Hjörtur Árnason” and thank the tech gods this Good Samaritan left a comment that was able to solve my issue with where to copy the new cert and issues revolving around said task.
After getting this working I of course found the Zimbra documentation which provides detailed info for generating and deploying certs: http://wiki.zimbra.com/wiki/Administration_Console_and_CLI_Certificate_Tools