Hi there, I'm pleased to announce the immediate availability of ZShellScripts 0.3 Why would Zope only support Python Scripts ? Install ZShellScripts instead. ZShellScripts unifies Zope scripting facilities by providing a common script object type and different interpreter object types to which the script execution is delegated. ZShellScripts is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License of the Free Software Foundation. ZShellScripts currently feature interpreters for the following languages : - Python : scripts *should* work EXACTLY like native Python Scripts. - Lisp : allows Lisp scripting in Zope through William Annis' PyLisp. - Perl : allows Perl scripts to interact transparently with Zope through a mix of direct access and xml-rpc access. - PHP : allows PHP scripts to access to Zope's variables, and will ultimately function like the Perl interpreter described above. PHP scripts automatically give access to the same variables than those defined by the PHParser product, plus many more. - Unix : allows Unix (Bash only) shell scripts to access to Zope variables through the use of environment variables - Zope : currently still under developpment. Will allow people to create scripts in the Zope ZShell language, similar to the language defined by the popular ZShell external method. Adding support for a new language (e.g. Tcl) should now be a matter of minutes ! This early release features only preliminary support for PHP. Thanks to the incredibly great help from Wei He, you should reasonably expect a more complete version soon. Help needed : - comments, bug reports, etc... - Perl, PHP and Lisp gurus are very much welcome. ============================================================ For people who want to ask why I wrote this product : I don't need such a product. This was (and still is) fun to write, that's all. I hope this will encourage people to invent new ways to use Zope, and maybe help people to port existing scripts in non-python language to Zope. ============================================================ SECURITY : ========== For security conscious people (or especially for Florent ;-) : -------------------------------------------------------------- - ZShellScripts written in Python should be at least as secure as native Zope Python Scripts. Maybe more because the "Shell (Python)" objects used as Python interpreters can have restrictions too. - ZShellScripts written in Lisp : same as above. - ZShellScripts written in Shell, Perl or PHP languages : CARE SHOULD BE TAKEN WHEN USING THEM. They are executed at the operating system level as the user Zope is run as, so don't allow people to use "Shell (xxx)" objects if they don't have too. The interesting thing is that you can have people write ZShellScripts and different people with more rights to test them (untested but should work this way). Actually they can go back to Zope only through xml-rpc, and the current user and passwords are available as the username and password variables (i.e. $username and $password in Perl or PHP) but many xml-rpc libraries can't authenticate easily. - ZShellScripts written in the Zope ZShell language should be at least as safe as the standalone original ZShell external method, which implements security checkings everywhere. ============================================================ Installation : -------------- If you plan to use "Shell (Perl)" objects, then download and install Perl and the Perl Frontier module, get them from CPAN, or if you use a Debian GNU/Linux distribution : $ apt-get install perl libfrontier-rpc-perl If you plan to use "Shell (PHP)" objects, then download and install a standalone PHP4 interpreter, or if you use a Debian GNU/Linux distribution : $ apt-get install php4-cgi $ cd /usr/bin $ ln -s /usr/bin/php4 php The two lines above ensures that your php4 interpreter is available under the simpler 'php' name. NB : there's currently a compatibility problem with PHP3. If you plan to use "Shell (Lisp)" objects, then download and install William S. Annis' PyLisp from : http://www.biostat.wisc.edu/~annis/creations/ PyLisp used to be distributed from within ZShellScripts but this is not the case anymore because it now integrates the modification I did to it. Be sure you put the lisp.py file in a directory accessible from Zope (e.g. your python's site-packages directory) Finally, download and install the ZShellScript product from : http://www.librelogiciel.com/software Then, under Debian : $ cd /var/lib/zope/Products $ tar -zxf ~/ZShellScripts-x.xx.tar.gz restart Zope : $ /etc/init.d/zope stop $ /etc/init.d/zope start Installation instructions may be somewhat different on other systems. YMMV. Alternatively you can download the CVS version hosted on : http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/zshscripts To do so : $ cvs -d:pserver:anoncvs@subversions.gnu.org:/cvsroot/zshscripts login a password is asked, just press Enter $ cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anoncvs@subversions.gnu.org:/cvsroot/zshscripts co ZShellScripts Enjoy ! Please email bugs or comments at: alet@librelogiciel.com