[Solved] ISPConfig3 + Oracle Linux 9.3 + getmail/getmail6 [/Solved]

Hello all. I first want to thank everyone who contributes. You guys are the real heroes! I'd buy you all beers if I could... and if you drink.
With CentOS7.9 coming up on EOL We've decided to make the move to Oracle Linx. We've tried Rocky and Alma, and Stream is just not going to work for us, but for all intents and purposes, Oracle Linux just seems like the best fit. Plus, I really do like their UEK and sometimes they get fixes out before the Stream/RH guys.
Looking at the long-term support I've decided to go with 9.3. It's the most recent release, and I figure that by this subversion it has to be pretty stable. When I setup our original ISPConfig3 machines I used The Perfect Server - CentOS7 (Apache2, Dovecot, ISPConfig 3) by @till, so naturally when it was time I went looking for "The Perfect Server - CentOS9" but the most recent out there is The Perfect Server CentOS 8 with Apache, PHP, Postfix, Dovecot, Pure-FTPD, BIND and ISPConfig 3.2. This one is also by @till, so it's very easy to follow, and I appreciate the work @till has put into it.
I know there were big changes from CentOS 7.x to 8.x, but not too many big changes going from 8.x to 9.x. My hope was a pretty straightforward install, and so far it has been. I have found a couple of differences and most of them are just updated packages (remi-repo and php8.x comes to mind), and then there is the whole issue with the way grub2-mkconfig now requires an option --update-bls-cmdline to actually write changes to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX. This right here is a whole new "feature" that was added in 9.3, and I beat my head against a wall for HOURS until I found an obscure reference on a Rocky 9.3 forum page back to a RHEL document talking about the new features.
While there are a couple of differences, and I've also installed percona instead of mysql/mariadb, it has been going really well... until now. For the last 5-6 hours I have been stuck on the "getmail" installation. The issue is that @till 's docs are using an older version that users Python 2.x; however, Python2 has been abandoned so it is no longer safely installable.
I also found THIS REPO for getmail5.16 on rhel.pkgs.org; however, when attempting to sudo dnf install getmail it errors with "nothing provides python(abi) = 3.6 needed by getmail" and python(abi) is installed by default which means the updated package was set to a specific Python 3.6 requirement, and we're now at Python 3.9.18. I thought about updating the rpm package, but that's a little outside my wheelhouse.
After more digging, I found THIS REPO for getmail-6.18 on rhel.pkgs.org. It is through the "okay network" and while their main site is down for "maintenance" their mirror was up and I was able to install getmail; HOWEVER, now when I run "getmail --version" I'm getting an error 'File "/usr/bin/getmail", line 67 except ImportError, 0: SyntaxError: invalid syntax' and I do not know if this is a good thing or a bad thing ... I'm guessing bad.
I've also found getmail6 which on their site states that is a fork of getmail v5.14 by Charles Cazabon, and if you look at the github project page it installs via "pip install getmail6". After installing it if you run "getmail --version" you get "-bash: /usr/bin/getmail: No such file or directory"; however, if you uninstall it it says uninstalling getmail6 would remove /usr/local/bin/getmail and quite a few others.
So I guess this question is really for @till, have you looked at updating the docs or is there an alternative to getmail or is the SyntaxError pretty standard and I shouldn't worry?
Thanks for taking the time to read this lengthy post!
-Jason

 

In short, Oracle Linux is not supported and might not be supported. Avoid headaches and stay with the supported OSes as mentioned above. They are both good.

 

Current ISPConfig does work in EL7 - EL9 and with some adjustment of the server's admin even EL6 would work with current ISPConfig.
However, as far as I understand, the entire RHEL family is not anymore among the "official main" distributions that are preferentially supported by ISPConfig.

If you want to install ISPConfig "stress-free", then I would to suggest to use the auto-installer and ditch the RHEL ecosystem, as it was already mentioned.
But if you really want to make ISPConfig work in RHEL or Oracle Linux or any other clone then continue.

Regarding getmail: Do you really need getmail? ISPConfig will work just fine without getmail with the exception that you cannot use it anymore to pull emails from other mail accounts / foreign mail accounts.

Maybe I can later provide an updated getmail6 package for EL9, if there is interest at all.

 

@till, while I thank you for your reply, that is not an option. We have zero ubuntu or debian, and there are 10 environments that are CentOS 7.9 that are being migrated to another fedora based systems as CentOS has gone to the "stream" variant and is more of a beta product now.
@ahrasis while I appreciate your comments, that was not the question. Per my comment above, we have zero ubuntu or debian environments, and we are not going to add any to become a multi-environment shop. I personally have no like or dislike for either of those systems, and you might think they are good, and that is all well and fine, but if you need OS support you only have the community to turn to, and while the communities are very helpful, it is always nice to have the developer behind the distro offering support, if needed.
@michelangelo thank you for your reply, and as an update, I was up about 3 hours ago and actually did get getmail6 installed and running correctly. Here is what I was able to utilize to get a working install:

Code:

  This creates a working install
    >> cd /tmp && mkdir getmail && cd getmail
    Download getmail6 tar.gz
    >> wget https://github.com/getmail6/getmail6/archive/refs/tags/v6.18.14.tar.gz
    Unzip and enter the directory
    >> tar xzf v6.18.14.tar.gz && cd getmail6-6.18.14
    Build with regular user
    >> python setup.py build
    SU to root and isntall
    >> su root
    >> [root$] python setup.py install
    After install run "getmail --version" to verify
    >> getmail --version
    >> getmail 6.18.14

Noiw when I [user@host ~]$ getmail --version I get "getmail 6.18.14, so I can now move on in the installation procedure.
@michaelangelo, to answer your question: I was just following the "how to guide" created by @till for the ISPConfig 3 + CentOS 8.X install and it called for getmail. Do I need it? Probably not, but now it matches the guide. :man-shrugging:
I honestly do not know why so many people are "ditch fedora/rhel/variant" these days. From a stability standpoint Oracle Linux with the UEK is a very solid platform, even if the oracle repos are a little slower. I've seen it where they have pathces out before RHEL even finds out about this issues.
Anyway, thanks for the replies. I'm also going to marked this as solved and post my reply later with what I had to do to get it working.
-Jason

 

@till i do have a question for you. In your phpMyAdmin configuration, you have it set to 'http' authentication versus 'cookie', can I ask why you prefer this method? I notice when you're in cookie it gives you the nice login, while http gives you just the base browser modal login.
Thanks,

Jason

 

Personally, I also prefer the RHEL ecosystem (I do alot of rpm packaging) and especially the 10 years of updates, which is why I try to maintain compatibility for it in ISPConfig.
However, not everyone is profound enough to install ISPConfig on a distribution that is not really, officially supported anymore, especially when they have to rely on Howtos that are not up-to-date.

I also have full understanding for the core developers if they say after all the fuzz around CentOS/RHEL in the previous 4-5 years that these distributions aren't of high priority anymore for them. If projects like AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux wouldn't have emerged, I'm pretty sure I would have continued with Debian.

Either way, I'm glad you could work it out with getmail v6 in Oracle Linux.
I'll link my github repo that contains the .spec file and a built rpm of getmail v6 in case if one prefers to install it via dnf, link: https://github.com/ms217/rpm-specs/tree/master/el9/getmail6

 

@michelangelo, I've kept an updated list of what I've had to "modify" to make this new installation work, and I'd like to go ahead and create an updated "how to" for OL/Cent/RHEL/Alma/Rocky 9.3.
Thanks for the link! I'll keep it in mind. as for me I'm setting this up as a template as we've got 10 servers all running this, so I'll deploy them all in a nice big ole group and then work on migrating from old ISPConfig to new instances.
Also, I do agree the recent actions of IBM/RHEL in regards to CentOS/RHEL do seem pretty shady, and if it wasn't for OL, and like you said Alma and Rocky, I guess I would have had to change. I don't know if RHEL is worth the money from a licensing stand point to be honest.

THanks again,
-Jason