Installing and Starting Zope
By the end of this chapter you should be able to install and start Zope. It's fairly easy to install Zope on most platforms, and it should typically take you no longer than ten minutes.
Anonymous User - Aug. 26, 2004 11:45 am: If I am reading the document from the front, then I am not yet ready for you to start telling me the mechanics of "what buttons to push and what commands to type and what installers to run" to install the thing. I'm still in the process of trying to decide -if- I want to install the thing. I want to know what changes it makes to my system; what processes it runs, what privileges are needed. What software (DBMSes etc) it is compatible with and so on. In other words, "Waitaminute, buster, you're not done with the foreplay yet!" ;-) ;-) :-D
Anonymous User - Aug. 26, 2004 11:51 am: At our company we use a public hosting-service for our web site and have no intention of taking this "in house." Therefore, either: 1.. the hosting service will have to consent to run Zope; or 2.. we must switch to a hosting service that already does; or 3.. we must run the Zope server on one of our machines and link it to the web host's system. All of these scenarios are not only non-trivial; but not discussed.
Anonymous User - Sep. 2, 2004 6:52 pm: I have almost one month trying to learn Zope. First of all, I would like to see a "Zope for dummies" or "Teach yourself in 24 hrs." book. I'm very disappointed with this tool. I have to install it twice before it could run, it doesn't install the service well, so I have to learn how to do it manually. The documentation is a fake, is not deep enough to my taste, no exhaustive examples, etc. I know the guys who work on it, maybe doesn't have a lot of time to write. It's just I would like to explain my boss, that is impossible to learn quickly this tool and start to develop applications with Zope. It take me a month to understand and start to use Java (including Apps, Servlets, EJB, etc.) on my last job, but this one... I don't know... I have a lot of questions but no answers. :(
Anonymous User - Sep. 8, 2004 6:33 am: This make the difference between you and a professional user. Learning zope is not an hobby for 24 hours, it is an investment. Make sure you belong to the professional League: zope is not a toy. Best reguards Nicolas Windt
Anonymous User - Feb. 2, 2005 3:17 am: where can i get my questions answered straight to the point? some people just go around the bush and not answering my questions in plain english.
Anonymous User - Feb. 14, 2005 6:31 pm: Please this is not a your better than they are thing. You can be a professional and that does not mean a damn thing. Productivity does when its the bottom line. What they are refering to since you have not a clue. Is the epidemic in the open source movement of lack of documentation or over complicated explainations by the egg heads that come up with this stuff. It only further diminstrates they my be smart to come up with this stuff but are inept at being able to explain it to anyone else but an egg head. If your product is to succed for the masses you better be able to explain it to them. Or you going to get passed up by someone who can. You are productive the faster and easier it is to get up and running. Companies do not have the time or money to waste on training or gettting the training for there employees. The easier a product is to train, use, understand, ect.. the better. My company has bybassed open sourced tools before for the simple reason of documentation on how to and support. It cost them far less in the long run than to wait for an employee to learn the tool than to rely on commercial tools. get real!
Anonymous User - Feb. 18, 2005 3:34 pm: I would like to say to the comment above. Open source tools are not for everyone(well actually they are, but they do not fit everyone's idea of what a tool should be). Some people prefer the instant gratification that comes with getting things running faster and easier, but that does not in any way imply that they are more productive just because they got visible results quicker. If you truly believe that this statement is accurate: "You are productive the faster and easier it is to get up and running." then I would agree that open source tools are not for you. However once you begin to see the immense cost that maintanence brings to the table, suddenly your narrow definition productivity starts to fail. Sure you can have a windows administrator get a webserver and other proprietary software up and running in a matter of a few days and seem very productive. However that person must then spend many hours maintaning it, as any windows administrator will tell you(and I can tell you from my own experiences). In addition to keeping it running, they will have to try to adapt the very rigid and immutable software to get it to provide whatever functionality you need(which sometimes may be impossible and will force many more hours of workarounds or re-planning). On the other hand you could have an linux/gnu administrator spend 15 days or even a month being trained to administer an open source web server that has repeatedly shown to have higher reliability, a faster patch cycle, and is often designed and written by users who have a good idea of what functionality might be needed. If some needed functionality is missing then someone(or yourself) can add that functionality by writing your own add-on. While I have never had the time to do this, I have definitely enjoyed the many open source mods and add-ins that have come after an initial software package was released. Once the initial idea/software gets out there, everyone is free to change and add to it, making it(in my opinion atleast, don't think this has been proven) much more likely to fit whatever needs one might have. IT infrastructure is an investment, and anyone who can't pay the $40 for a good book and won't allow their IT staff to take some time to learn these tools is not looking at it with the right scope. I can understand why managers don't understand the nature of open source software and are hesitant to use it, because it can be a consideral time investment, however I would argue that that is a management problem due to lack of vision and not a problem with OSS's inability to get up and running quickly and easily. If you don't realize what a bargain their software is being free and flexible, and instead demand it to be packaged in a nice little one-size-fits-all-box, I don't think they are trying to win you as a consumer and will be happy to continue to provide their work to those who understand sometimes investing time and effort pays off.
Anonymous User - Mar. 8, 2005 3:00 pm: To all the people who complainted above, stop crying about how this manual is insufficient for your need or it does not spell out a b x y and z. The manual CANNOT do your job for you. If you want a manual to do spell out what your specific needs are, get a government job or ask Bill Gates. The manual is only a guide. It's a guide. It's a guide. Repeat after me... That is why you are paid the big bucks - to figure out how to implement it. Someone already created this application and even wrote a manual for you and you are still crying that someone didn't do your job for you.
Anonymous User - Apr. 19, 2005 4:44 pm: Yea, well, I just wasted a slot in my O'Reilly bookshelf on this piece of garbage. Right out of the door the docs are wrong. Bad style. For all you who say "stop crying" grow up and get a real job. I am a professional, and I don't waste my (expensive) time on products that can't even get the install doc correct. Life is way to short to waste on this nonsense...
Anonymous User - Apr. 22, 2005 7:22 pm: I have to agree. I'm just getting into Zope (as my friend says, "Zope is dope!"), but coming from the PHP world (I have a feeling that's the "P-word" around here), I guess I have been spoiled by that OPEN SOURCE tool's EXCELLENT documentation. Maybe it's just a more mature language and good documentation takes time? In any case, if the developers of Zope are serious about spreading the "gospel," it might make sense to make sure it's not written in ancient Hebrew....
Anonymous User - May 28, 2005 11:39 am: The comments are annoying! After 'COM OFF', then '->', I have them again, now with 'COM ON'. Just to let you know. And: it's enough. bye, Zope
Anonymous User - May 31, 2005 2:05 pm: Im going to go ahead and add my 2 cents to this discussion... I have been trying to decide if zope is worth my time or not for a WHILE. I am currently developing in PHP it works, its fast, it supports OOP and sometimes it even makes me happy. I don't like how you have to repeat things for different cases and how much work it is to bring in common repeating features. Zope seems to handle many things better but for the life of me I cant get it to do anything worth writing home about. So I'd love to know any one with a better document to explain how to use it. Point blank, I wan't to use zope or at lease know if its for me. But I can not. IMO Open source is great, and once you get the hang of it, its very effective. It is not for every one, I for example think java is wasting corperate dollars and people could be using a far more efficient language but its what people feel comfortable in, so let them be. Zope is where others are happy, I guess although I'd love to know how they learned how to use it. PHP makes sense for me, I also know python, which makes zope a great jump for me. Heres the deal, ZOPE needs a documenting group/wiki or its worthless. Lets start one if we have to.
Anonymous User - June 11, 2005 12:06 am: My 2 cents... It took my 8 hours to learn Zope to a level that I would feel comfortable developing enterprise level applications. Of course I was comfortable with OOP and Python before starting. Also I've written an OO CMS using PHP/MySQL so I'm fairly familiar with web development. If you are struggling to learn Zope, you might brush up on object-oriented concepts before you start blaming Zope. Zope is not like traditional web development and that is what makes it good.
shodgen - June 28, 2005 2:11 pm: Alright, not certain if adding to this thread is a good idea, but I'll put in my two cents anway. First, Zope is one of the coolest web-dev tools around. period. Open Source software, like everything humans do, has it's strenths and weaknesses. due to a radically different development approach, spotty documenation is one of the weaknesses The fact that this incredible application has documentation at all, above an beyond a man page, is a testiment to how well this application is supported. Anyone who works with Open Source software should do so knowing what its strengths and weaknesses are, so they can either take advantage of the strengths, or using pay through the nose, so Bill can have a heated driveway. Yes, it can be frustrating at times to get certain information when using Zope. But "it's freaking free!" Additionally, it's incredibly great! So, either pay the price in frustration over lack of docs to benefit from what is does so well, or don't. Don't complain about what is a natural result of how the software is developed. It's like complaining that you get wet while swimming. That said, there are lots of other means of support, and the docs are getting better all the time. If you see the vision and potential of Open Source, as well as seeing how great Zope is, then the price in some frustration is well worth it, if you don't, then help the CEO's buy their summer yacht.
Anonymous User - July 8, 2005 9:41 am: You know an option that hasn't been explored yet: Write your own docs. As per the constant comparisons between PHP and Zope--it is like comparing ASP and Perl. Perl is a programming language, ASP is a programming framework. PHP is a programming language, Zope is a framework. So before saying "Oh PHP was easier to learn" think of the scale between the two projects before comparing apples and oranges. If you want a nice comparison, from my limitted knowledge on both, I'd say compare J2EE and Zope
Anonymous User - Aug. 5, 2005 5:38 am: Here's my view on it: I inherited an existing Zope-based website when I got this job, and I've spent the last year working with it occasionally, not full time, but at least 2 days a month. First, the docs are very poor. I used to work full-time as a technical author and I know how hard it is to write good docs, and also I can tell good docs when I see them. Loads of the important info is hidden away in discussion forums, and can be very hard to track down. The official docs lack conceptual overviews, how-to-do-this-task sections, and some decent diagrams. There aren't many printed Zope books around. I bought one and it was rubbish. Second, it is very hard to install Zope plus Postgres plus all the other bits you need. It's really not entirely Zope's fault, it is an issue of version numbers and interactions between all the bits you need in order to get a proper website with a database under it. Third, it may all be free, but I think you can get on better with something like ASP.NET. You may need to buy it, but there is a library of third-party books and websites to support it, and it is (to me) easier and quicker to learn. Also, although Zope is FREE, I have to say that we've got a server running Windows Server 2003, which has SQL and ASP.NET bundled with it, and the software certainly cost less than the hardware. On the plus side, out of our two Zope based websites, one has run for the last year without a single problem (and it gets a lot of hits), indicating that once you get it all working, you can be sure it will keep working. Over all, I wouldn't recommend people to get into Zope, and I've found it pretty frustrating. But I think this reflects partly my pro-windows bias, because you need to be very comfortable with Linux in order to use Zope. I think you may save money using Zope, but waste time. Ask yourself, "Do I have spare money, or spare time?". Also, if your business invests a lot in Zope, and then your technical guy gets another job, try placing an advert along the lines of "Zope Expert Required" and see how many responses you get. Feel free to disagree! John
Downloading Zope
Zope Corporation makes "binaries" which are available on Zope.org for the Windows, Linux and Solaris operating systems. These binaries are "ready-to-run" releases of the Zope application server that do not require compilation.
Anonymous User - Apr. 19, 2005 4:34 pm: Where are the binaries? Not in the download section of Zope.org...
There are typically two types of Zope releases: a "stable" release and a "development" release. The "stable" Zope release is always available as a binary distribution for supported platforms. The "development" Zope release may or may not be distributed as a binary for any given platform. If you are new to Zope, you almost certainly want to use the "stable" Zope release.
Anonymous User - Oct. 27, 2005 10:27 pm: Unless if you're running Gentoo.
You may download Zope from the Zope.org web site. The most recent stable and development versions are always available from the Download area of the Zope.org website.
Anonymous User - Apr. 19, 2005 4:33 pm: The "Download" link is incorrect...
For platforms for which there is no binary release, you must download the Zope source and compile it. Zope may be compiled on almost any Unix-like operating system. Zope has reportedly been successfully compiled on Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Mac OS X, HPUX, IRIX, DEC OFS/1, and even Cygwin (the UNIX emulation platform for Windows). As a general rule of thumb, if Python is available for your operating system, and you have a C compiler and associated development utilities, then you can probably compile Zope. A notable exception is Mac OS 7/8/9. Zope does not run at all on these platforms.
Anonymous User - July 8, 2005 9:50 am: For those of you a little bit new to FreeBSD, Zope _is_ in the ports distrobution. [code] # cd /usr/ports/www/zope # make && make install [/code] Zope should now be installed on your FreeBSD system
Installing Zope
Zope requires different installation steps depending on your operating system platform. The sections below detail installing the binary version of Zope on Windows on Intel platforms, Solaris on SPARC platforms, and Linux on Intel platforms. We also detail a installation from source for platforms for which Zope Corporation does not provide a binary distribution.
Various binary Zope packages exist that are not distributed by Zope Corporation, but instead are distributed by third parties. Provided here is a list of URLs to these below for convenience's sake. These packages are not directly supported by Zope Corporation, although Zope Corporation encourages alternate binary distributions for unsupported platforms by third parties.
SPVI's Mac OS X binary distro
Anonymous User - Aug. 26, 2004 7:31 am: This link seems to be obsolete. There is nothing related to Mac OS X and Zope there.
Jeff Rush's Zope RPMs for Linux
Anonymous User - Apr. 17, 2004 2:50 am: Jeff Rush's Zope RPMs for Linux. This link for download not found
Adam Manock's Zope RPMs for Linux
Debian Linux Zope package
Anonymous User - Sep. 6, 2004 9:17 pm: if the apt sources are enabled,just run the command "apt-get install zope".
Gentoo Zope ebuild
Anonymous User - June 15, 2004 10:30 am: Link is bad. Try http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?zope-2.6.4
Anonymous User - May 31, 2005 12:44 pm: The following is for OpenBSD 3.7 (and probably earlier versions)- Having installed plone and zope via pkg_add, you end up with a /usr/local/lib/zope directory. Then in /usr/local/lib/zope/doc is README.OpenBSD which contains the following about setting up Zope: # cat README.OpenBSD $OpenBSD: README.OpenBSD,v 1.1 2004/08/03 10:16:36 xsa Exp $ In this document we'll see how to create a zope instance and have it start at boot time. Throughout this document, we will assume that the instance you want will be located in /var/www under the name of 'zope'. Our instance will thus be /var/www/zope. 1) Creating your instance - run /usr/local/lib/zope/bin/mkzopeinstance.py to create your instance: # /usr/local/lib/zope/bin/mkzopeinstance.py Please choose a directory in which you'd like to install Zope "instance home" files such as database files, configuration files, etc. Directory: /var/www/zope Please choose a username and password for the initial user. These will be the credentials you use to initially manage your new Zope instance. Username: zopeadmin Password: Verify password: - as we want to run our instance(s) with the _zope user, we should grant him the rights on the log/ and var/ directories. # chown _zope /var/www/zope/{log,var} 2) Have your instance start at boot time: - to have your instance start at boot time, add the following to your /etc/rc.local. if [ -r /var/www/zope/etc/zope.conf -a -x /var/www/zope/bin/zopectl ]; then echo -n ' zope' /var/www/zope/bin/zopectl start fi (end) Hope this hels somebody as I've just spent about an hour tracking down this info!! I have'nt actually got my server running yet - thats the next stage! Anonymous User - Mar. 29, 2005 5:55 pm: Look here for Mac OS X Info and distributions: http://zope-mosx.zopeonarope.com/
Zope is also available from many Linux distributors as a "native" package. For example, RedHat often ships Zope on its "PowerTools" CD as an RPM. Check with your Linux operating system vendor to see if there are native Zope packages available for your platform.
Go there...
http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/InstallingZope.stx
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