I know it has been asked many times which os is best for zope, I have yet to see a 'system administration perspective' in the discussion. By this I mean which os seems to have the most worry free administration of a zope instances. I have installed zope on both FreeBSD and various linucies and here is what I have observed: 1) Freebsd ports collection is an easy way to install zope -- the ports maintainer takes care of making the build files to handle all the zope dependencies including python versions, libraries, etc. However, I have yet to use portupgrade to apply security patches to zope instances running on freebsd. Does anyone know of using cvsupdate for getting security patches works over the ports collection of zope smoothly? 2) I've run zope on Red Hat and Suse linux. In both cases I found that I needed to install a different version of python than the one packaged with the distro becuase Zope had specific dependencies for new versions python. Applying patches to zope is manual. It has always been very inconvenient to build python and PIL in a separate run instances for zope. This seems like a major pain in the ... 3) I have never run zope on windows except for test versions of plone that were loaded through binary installers -- completely packaged with python and zope. While this is convenient, I don't know if I want to run a windows server for any publicly accessible site. 4) I am very interested to know how others manage zope sites. Are there any best practices? Are there any linux distributions that are more kind to zope than others -- meaning they don't have dependencies on old python versions, or they have a very good patch system (debian apt updates for zope??) -- David Bear phone: 602-496-0424 fax: 602-496-0955 College of Public Programs/ASU University Center Rm 622 411 N Central Phoenix, AZ 85007-0685 "Beware the IP portfolio, everyone will be suspect of trespassing"
----- Original Message ----- From: "David Bear" <David.Bear@asu.edu> To: "zope" <Zope@zope.org> Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 6:05 PM Subject: [Zope] which operating system quandry
I know it has been asked many times which os is best for zope, I have yet to see a 'system administration perspective' in the discussion. By this I mean which os seems to have the most worry free administration of a zope instances. I have installed zope on both FreeBSD and various linucies and here is what I have observed:
2) I've run zope on Red Hat and Suse linux. In both cases I found that I needed to install a different version of python than the one packaged with the distro becuase Zope had specific dependencies for new versions python. Applying patches to zope is manual. It has always been very inconvenient to build python and PIL in a separate run instances for zope. This seems like a major pain in the ...
I am currently using CentOS 4.3 and it works well for me (RH equivalent), but yes you will probably have to install another version of python, but once you have done it a few times its not that bad! (I am running PIL and a bunch of other non-standard - ie, perl/C++/etc - packages in conjunction with my zope applications, without problems). "yum" is great for rpm managment. btw, i am running both 32 bit and 64 bit versions of CentOS (different boxes of course!) and have had no problems with zope/zeo/PIL/et al at all (i am running zope 2.9.2 and zope 3.2 in both environments with no problems). Jonathan
David Bear wrote:
I know it has been asked many times which os is best for zope, I have yet to see a 'system administration perspective' in the discussion. By this I mean which os seems to have the most worry free administration of a zope instances. I have installed zope on both FreeBSD and various linucies and here is what I have observed:
1) Freebsd ports collection is an easy way to install zope -- the ports maintainer takes care of making the build files to handle all the zope dependencies including python versions, libraries, etc. However, I have yet to use portupgrade to apply security patches to zope instances running on freebsd. Does anyone know of using cvsupdate for getting security patches works over the ports collection of zope smoothly?
2) I've run zope on Red Hat and Suse linux. In both cases I found that I needed to install a different version of python than the one packaged with the distro becuase Zope had specific dependencies for new versions python. Applying patches to zope is manual. It has always been very inconvenient to build python and PIL in a separate run instances for zope. This seems like a major pain in the ...
i've been most happy w/ debian or ubuntu, and have also had good luck w/ gentoo. in each case, i use python (as well as nearly all python dependencies, e.g. PIL) from the distribution, but then build Zope itself from source, either a checkout or a tarball. -r
--On 29. September 2006 15:05:06 -0700 David Bear <David.Bear@asu.edu> wrote:
I know it has been asked many times which os is best for zope, I have yet to see a 'system administration perspective' in the discussion. By this I mean which os seems to have the most worry free administration of a zope instances. I have installed zope on both FreeBSD and various linucies and here is what I have observed:
1) Freebsd ports collection is an easy way to install zope -- the ports maintainer takes care of making the build files to handle all the zope dependencies including python versions, libraries, etc. However, I have yet to use portupgrade to apply security patches to zope instances running on freebsd. Does anyone know of using cvsupdate for getting security patches works over the ports collection of zope smoothly?
Don't depend on packages. It is the safest way to use the source code distributions. The sources code distro is recommended and supported. In case of packages you depend often on a single maintainer.
2) I've run zope on Red Hat and Suse linux. In both cases I found that I needed to install a different version of python than the one packaged with the distro becuase Zope had specific dependencies for new versions python. Applying patches to zope is manual. It has always been very inconvenient to build python and PIL in a separate run instances for zope. This seems like a major pain in the ...
Using a Python source installation is also highly recommended. System Python installation often have issues that lead to unpredictable failures. So choose either between the hassles with a clean Python source installation or with system Python installation.
4) I am very interested to know how others manage zope sites. Are there any best practices? Are there any linux distributions that are more kind to zope than others -- meaning they don't have dependencies on old python versions, or they have a very good patch system (debian apt updates for zope??)
The Linux distro really does not matter. The discussions about different Linux distros are just esoteric. The major distros like Debian, Fedora Core, Redhat, Suse are all working. And maintaining Zope instances on such systems is nearly always the same. You install Python and Zope from the sources and that's it. So please no further discussions about which Linux distribution is the best...that's off-topic. -aj -- ZOPYX Ltd. & Co. KG - Charlottenstr. 37/1 - 72070 Tübingen - Germany Web: www.zopyx.com - Email: info@zopyx.com - Phone +49 - 7071 - 793376 E-Publishing, Python, Zope & Plone development, Consulting
On Sep 30, 2006, at 3:10 AM, Andreas Jung wrote:
--On 29. September 2006 15:05:06 -0700 David Bear <David.Bear@asu.edu> wrote:
I know it has been asked many times which os is best for zope, I have ...snip smoothly?
Don't depend on packages. It is the safest way to use the source code distributions. The sources code distro is recommended and supported. In case of packages you depend often on a single maintainer.
I was wondering... I'm an old AIX guy and I never pick up pre- compiled versions of software because the guy who compiles it often has choices and his choices are not what I want. So I just pick up and compile what I want/need. That practice has propagated over to Mac OS X where I do most of my "home" work now. Perry Smith Ease Software, Inc. pedz@easesoftware.com http://www.easesoftware.com SATA Products for IBMs RS/6000, pSeries, and AIX systems
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 30 Sep 2006, at 14:59, Perry Smith wrote:
On Sep 30, 2006, at 3:10 AM, Andreas Jung wrote:
--On 29. September 2006 15:05:06 -0700 David Bear <David.Bear@asu.edu> wrote:
I know it has been asked many times which os is best for zope, I have ...snip smoothly?
Don't depend on packages. It is the safest way to use the source code distributions. The sources code distro is recommended and supported. In case of packages you depend often on a single maintainer.
I was wondering... I'm an old AIX guy and I never pick up pre- compiled versions of software because the guy who compiles it often has choices and his choices are not what I want. So I just pick up and compile what I want/need. That practice has propagated over to Mac OS X where I do most of my "home" work now.
There's a fine line between the amount of work involved and what it is that you want to end up "supporting" because you're the one who built it. I would never want to build for example my own Apache or Squid, I rely on distribution-provided packages myself. This guarantees I'll be up to date most of the time (bug fixes etc) and updates happen without much effort on my side with the distribution's own update mechanisms. But Zope, Python and any add-ons to these two I would never take from the distribution and always compile it myself because for those I am willing and able to take over "support" myself. Like you, for those specific packages I don't trust any packagers' choices. jens -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (Darwin) iD8DBQFFHnS+RAx5nvEhZLIRAlW2AJ9ziitSXTsI+n7TPGq5PIm0BsBmHQCcCuby TNV2fNKZ+p8jVqIqhPn3BlQ= =ZVnS -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
From: "David Bear" <David.Bear@asu.edu> Sent: Friday, 29 de September de 2006 23:05 Hello. [...]
4) I am very interested to know how others manage zope sites. Are there any best practices? Are there any linux distributions that are more kind to zope than others -- meaning they don't have dependencies on old python versions, or they have a very good patch system (debian apt updates for zope??)
Believe it or not, but is far easier to rely on "configure/make/make install" for any Zope installation on linux. Specific python installation for Zope is a must, because you can tailor your python with your own modules, configuration, hacks, patches, whatever. If possible, install everything under /opt/webapp/. This will give you a big friend ( man tar ) when you have to transfer your Zope app to another server. Separate/Isolate your Zope installation from OS and the sysadmin will also be your friend. Zope upgrades ( not security updates ) are very dificult to manage. For example, upgrading from 2.9 to 2.10 produces too many errors, followed by an incredible amount of work, especially if you have a lot of products or special hacks on your zope installation. So the rule here is to install a python/zope version ( and stick to it! ), keep an eye on zope.org security patches, python module upgrades ( PIL, pycrypto, etc ) and watch the daily log of your sysadmin. Generate enough documentation to rebuild a Zope installation from scratch ( we never know when that fantastic hw raid ceased to be... ). Don't forget to elaborate a list of external dependencies. "I don't understand why john just disconnected that dns server" or "john, are your there? i'm unable to reach that important database" are common sentences after firewall/<place_your_network_equipment_here> policy updates by your friend, sysadmin john. Backup often. And if you have time, write a recovery plan and test it, writing down how much time it will take to recover from that stupid hw raid. Best regards, @178, Nbk P.s. - And don't think to upgrade directly from 2.7 to 2.10. That's even harder. ;-)
David Bear <David.Bear@...> writes:
1) Freebsd ports collection is an easy way to install zope -- the ports maintainer takes care of making the build files to handle all the zope dependencies including python versions, libraries, etc. However,
Actually I must say that I tried the Zope 2.8 Port a while ago and this was incorrectly trying to use the wrong Python Version 2.4.x. I mailed the maintainer and he wrote that he would fix it. Looking at http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/ports.cgi?query=zope&stype=all I can see that the Zope 2.8.8 Port still references to Python 2.4 - so it got updated but it is still using the *wrong* Python version. :( And I would not dare to update my Zope using the FreeBSD Port System, since I had some bad experiences with this regarding other Applications. But that strongly depends on the quality of the Port itself.
2) I've run zope on Red Hat and Suse linux. In both cases I found that I needed to install a different version of python than the one packaged with the distro becuase Zope had specific dependencies for new versions python. Applying patches to zope is manual. It has always been
Quite funny, because RedHat and Suse do exactly the same as I have noticed with FreeBSD. So how come, that you had a different experience. Which Zope and Python Versions did you install? Zope Packages in Debian and Ubuntu do work nicely although I would also recommend to at least install Zope from source.
inconvenient to build python and PIL in a separate run instances for zope. This seems like a major pain in the ...
However this approach gives you more flexibility, since you can update Python and Zope at the moment that *you* want to and you can ensure that Security Updates do not break something in your Zope instance (which however has never happened to me, but you never know...).
4) I am very interested to know how others manage zope sites. Are there any best practices? Are there any linux distributions that are more kind to zope than others -- meaning they don't have dependencies on old python versions, or they have a very good patch system (debian apt updates for zope??)
Debian and Ubuntu, as I mentioned before, play quite well with Zope. Much better than FreeBSD from my experience, but as always ymmv. ;) Regards Maik
participants (8)
-
Andreas Jung -
David Bear -
Jens Vagelpohl -
Jonathan -
Maik Ihde -
Olavo Santos -
Perry Smith -
Rob Miller