-----Original Message----- From: Peter.Rupp@ual.com [mailto:Peter.Rupp@ual.com] Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2000 12:08 PM To: zope@zope.org Subject: [Zope] Need help with evaluation issues of Zope

1) Potential bug? I compiled Zope on an intel machine running Solaris 2.7 (using gcc 2.8.1) and Python 1.5.2 (latest). I started Zope (using Zope's bundled web server) and followed the tutorial in building a fictious web site. After adding various users/passwords to the user-acl folder (which existed under the web site's high level folder), I restarted another netscape browser to see if I could login to manage the site as one of the aformentioned users....Zope would not let me login as the new added users, but I could login as superuser. Next, thinking that that perhaps Zope was one of those products that had to be restarted to see the new userid's, I attempted to restart zope from the management "control-panel" page. It appears that Zope does restart, but.....you cannot access the Zope web site anymore....Zope puts up a page saying something to the effect "it tried to perform IO on a closed file", then a long list of trace messages. Also, in the xterm window where I started Zope, a message pops up (STDERR) saying that it cannot write to some file, then prints what appear to be octal zeros \000\000\000.

Unfortunately, I don't have the specifics with me (I can send that along if you want). Any ideas here? The remote management ability of Zope is stated as a feature, but it concerns me that this simple operation fails miserably.

I suspect this is not a Zope bug because no one else is reporting it, and I cannot reproduct it on Linux or SPARC solaris. It is probably something to do with your setup. You're not storing the Data.fs file on an NFS partition are you? That would be BAAAAAAAAD.

2) I think the tutorial is excellent, but it doesn't go into the exact meaning(s) of "a Zope user" and what the ACL list is for. This is something I really need help understanding. To me, "user" could mean the following things: a) A "site administrator" user...that is I have the ability to go through a backdoor at the web-site and perform administrative operations....whereby I would login at some point?

Yes, this is a Zope user. It typically has the "Manager" role but you can create new roles for different 'kinds' of manager that you want.

b) A "web surfer" (who really isn't authenticated as a "user") who visits the site looking for some information that's made public via the web site. I'm guessing here, but that at some point, administrative users come in this way, then when traveling to a different folder within the site, are eventually asked to login?

This is also a Zope user called "Anonymous User" it has the "Anonymous" Role.

c) A "paid subscription" user, who after logging in, has access to his separate area and can see specific web pages on the site?

This is like any other user, it just has a special role you create. It could be the "Paid Subscriber" role, if you want.

These concepts are not very clear from the doc, and would appreciate any help understanding Zope's meaning of the word "user".

Zope has Users, Roles and Permissions. Users have Roles, and various Roles have Permissions mapped to them. At any time a User is allowed to do anything that the union of the permissions of their roles allows them to do. Using your example, you can create a "Subscriber" role that has more permissions than "Anonymous" does. When someone gives you money, you give them the Subscriber role and voila, they are allowed to do things that only Subscribers can do, because they have the role. BTW, in DTML you can access the current user object with <dtml-var AUTHENTICATED_USER>.

3) I'm running Oracle 7.3.2 on the same server that Zope's intalled...but I couldn't seem to find information on how to connect to an Oracle database. My goal was to run a simple query against a system table, and display the results. The ZSQL guide guides you through a "Gadfly" database connection, but I couldn't find anything that would connect me to Oracle. Is there something basic that I have missed here?

No, you need to use DCOracle and the Oracle Database Adapter. Many of our customers use Oracle and Zope quite extensivly. Gadfly is a free, simple, lightweight relational database written in Python.

4) Does Zope have the capability of aiding the cgi-script programming effort for populating a database? I would like to put up a form, have the user input some items, and have these items *inserted* into an Oracle database. Is this feasable, or do I have to write my own cgi-interface? Speaking of cgi, is the only way to run a cgi-script from within Zope by creating an external Python method that ultimately calls the "system" module?

No, you don't need to write your own CGI interface, in fact Zope removes all need to ever think about CGI again. I haven't messed with it for years. Read Jeffrey's HowTo on using relational databases. http://www.zope.org/Members/jshell/ZSQLMethods-InsertingData Further, there is gobs of documentation on this. Go to http://www.zope.org/ and type 'ZSQL' into the "Search" box. -Michel