The Zextras Drive

Zextras Drive is a Zimbra component that serves as both a full-featured file storage system coupled with the Zimbra WebClient and a replacement for the former “Briefcase” component.

Features

Upload, manage, and download files from the frontend
Files should be organised into navigable directories.
File preview
Make files “preferred” for easy access.
Custom notes (descriptions) can be added to files.
Distribute files to internal users.
Share files with other users (NYI)
Zimbra Docs integration
File lookup
Navigation based on folders
Simple “stateful” navigation
Option to store files on separate Zimbra volumes on the backend
CLI for zxsuite drive

The distinctions between Briefcase and Drive

When it comes to file storage, navigation, sharing, and item deletion, Zextras Drive deviates from standard mailbox-driven behaviour. See the appropriate paragraph for each feature for a detailed discussion of the distinctions and the features themselves.

Installation of Zimlet

The com_zextras_drive Zimlet may be launched from the Zextras Administration Zimlet’s “Core” section.

After the Zimlet has been deployed and enabled, no setup on the mailboxd side is required.

Compatibility with browsers

The browsers listed below are known to fully support all Zextras functionalities.

Items labelled “Limited” are only compatible with the browser’s two prior stable versions.

App for mobile devices

Zextras Drive mobile apps are available for both Android and iOS.

Uploading and downloading is a feature that is described in detail below.

To upload a file to Drive, either click the “Upload” button above the file list or drag & drop a file from your computer to the main Drive window.

To download a file from Google Drive, right-click on it and choose “Download”:

Renaming any file or folder in Drive is as simple as right-clicking on it and selecting the “Rename” option from the context menu.

Briefcase contents are part of the folder and item hierarchy of the mailbox, whereas Drive has its own internal folder structure and navigation. Navigating between Drive folders is done via the Navigation Bar on top of the UI rather than a tree view, and folders are shown above files in the main area of the UI.

In addition to the conventional folder-based navigation, there is a “Quick Access” menu on the left side of the UI that allows you to rapidly examine the following categories of items:

Favourite Items

Items marked with a “Star” appear in the right-click context menu.

Edited recently

Items that have recently been modified, ordered by most recently edited.

provided to me

Items that have been shared by other users.

I shared it.

Items distributed to other users

Marked for removal

Items that have been designated for deletion

Folder Formation

To make a folder in Drive, click the “New” button above the file list and then choose “Folder File and Folder Naming.”

In Drive folders and files, the following characters are not permitted:

Slash /
a backslash
Semicolon:
Is there a question mark?
The plus symbol +
* asterisk
The % symbol

Sharing

Drive files and folders can be shared individually since they are not part of the mailbox’s item hierarchy. Sharing rights can be selected from three options: “View”, “Edit”, and “Edit and Share” – the latter two include the “View” ability by default.

Right-click a file or folder and select “Edit Shares” to share it. After inputting the target user’s email address and selecting the sharing permissions, click the (+) button to add the share to the list:

To amend or remove a share, just alter the sharing rights of the file/folder by clicking the dropdown permission picker, or delete the share by clicking the trash bin icon:

Sharing rights are only “positive” in Drive, therefore it is not possible to share an item with a lesser permission than its parent, for example, if a folder is shared with “Edit” permissions, it is not feasible to share one of its items with “View” rights with the same person.

Item Removal

Drive items are marked for deletion rather from being placed in the Trash like every other item type in Zimbra. To delete a file or folder, right-click on it and select “Mark for Deletion”:

Items marked for deletion are indicated with a strikethrough line at the bottom of the file list and may be permanently destroyed by clicking on the “Delete Permanently” option inside the right-click context menu of a file marked for deletion, whereas the “Restore” entry will unmark the file:

While any user with “Edit” or “Edit and Share” access to an item or folder can flag it for deletion, only the original owner can permanently remove it.

Items marked for deletion cannot be accessible, therefore if a user tries, a pop-up notice will appear asking if the user wants to restore the item and access it or cease the effort and leave it marked for deletion.

InfoBox

The InfoBox is a collapsible element that displays all of the information and controls for the selected file or folder, as well as a preview of the file itself if it is in a suitable format (images, PDFs, and so on).

To access the Infobox, click the symbol in the upper-right corner of the Drive UI:

From top to bottom, the InfoBox includes:

The chosen file’s name
The file preview (or a format icon for unsupported formats)
The right-click context menu contains all action items.
Disseminate information
Information creation and editing
A “Description” field that may be customised

File Versioning File versioning keeps track of all file versions saved in zdrivev2-name and enables end users to restore and download prior file versions.

The File Versioning Menu displays all saved versions of a file, sorted by date decreasing, and allows you to open, download, or permanently store each version by clicking the “options” button on the right side of each item. Furthermore, the “Upload Version” and “Purge Versions” buttons at the bottom of the window allow you to upload a new version or purge all previous versions.

Zimbra Drive will keep 20 versions of each file for up to 90 days by default. This may be modified by configuring the following settings at the global, COS, or account levels:

driveMaxVersionRetentionDays: the maximum number of days to keep a version. Values ranging from 0 (no time limit) to 365. The default value is 90.
driveMaxVersionNumber: the maximum number of versions that can be stored. When this point is reached, any newer version will take the place of the oldest, as in a FIFO queue. 0 (no limit) or greater. The default value is 20.

E.g.

Run zxsuite config global set attribute driveMaxVersionRetentionDays value 120 to set the maximum retention length to 120 at the global level.
Run zxsuite config account set user@example.com attribute driveMaxVersionNumber value 5 to set the maximum number of saved versions to 5.
Run zxsuite config global empty attribute drive to reset the maximum retention time at the global level.MaxVersionRetentionDays

File Storage for Technical Information

While Briefcase files are kept as mail-like objects within the mailbox’s folder tree, Drive has a node-based detached folder structure, therefore Drive folders do not display as mailbox folders (e.g., in the result of zmmailbox getAllFolders). Drive metadata is saved in a separate HSQL database, while all files (including prior file versions and file previews) are saved in a dedicated folder under the volume’s root. To accomplish native deduplication, file name is now hash-based rather than id-based, and compression rules are depending on the volume’s parameters.

A briefcase file’s filesystem path, for example, is as follows:

whereas a Drive file’s filesystem path is:

Volumes

Drive files are now kept on the Current Primary disc, just like any other object.

Zimbra Docs integration If the Zimbra Docs zimlet has been properly installed, the following dedicated document choices will show in the “New” button above the file list:

When you right-click on a compatible file, you’ll see a “Open with Docs” option:

Furthermore, Zimbra Docs will support the display of previews of suitable document types in the InfoBox.

Ports and URLs

Zextras Drive uses the default Zimbra settings for the domain of the account in use to construct URLs and links (for example, for External Shares) – the zimbraPublicServiceHostname property is used for the URL itself, while the zimbraPublicServicePort property is used for the port.

If neither of these are configured, the system will always default to the server-level attributes zimbraServiceHostname and zimbraMailPort or zimbraMailSSLPort.

Backup includes Zextras Drive Backup and HSM Backup Drive data, and both the RealTime Scanner and the SmartScan are aware of them, so no further activities are required to assure the files’ protection.

The recover on New Account and External Restore modes will also recover Drive files, however other restore options, such as Undelete Restore, would not.

HSM Drive may store its data on a disc other than the usual Current Primary one, and HSM policies can transfer Drive files to a volume other than the Current Secondary one, essentially allowing Drive files to have autonomous storage management.

Drive files will be treated under the “document” item type when an HSM policy is implemented.

This option is enabled at the server level to allow various mailbox servers to use different volumes.

Configuring the Drive Primary Volume

To establish the Drive Primary volume, execute zxsuite hsm getAllVolumes to obtain the volumeID of the target volume.

Simply execute (where [volumeID] is the ID determined with the preceding command) once the volumeID has been discovered.

Configuring the Drive Secondary Volume

To configure the Drive Secondary volume, first get the volumeID of the target volume as mentioned in the preceding paragraph, and then execute the command below.

Briefcase Transfer

Briefcase data may be imported into Drive through the doImportBriefcase CLI command:

The command takes a comma-separated list of targets to migrate, which can be mailboxes or domains, and several target types can be used on the same operation

To customise the migration, utilise the following attributes:

CLI Zextras Drive

The index of all zxsuite drive commands may be found in this section. The whole reference may be found in the section ZxDrive CLI Commands.

doDeleteBriefcaseData doDeployDriveZimlet doImportBriefcase doRestartService doStartService dumpSessions monitor getQuota getServices