[Zope] - Zope and Apache

[Michel Pelletier]

Greetings,

Please read this if you use or want to use The second pre-release of Zap
is available.

http://www.zope.org/Download/Prereleases/Zap/Zap-1.1.0pre2-linux2-x86.tar.gz/

There are two reasons for Zap:

1) To demonstrate a working copy of Zope with Apache for people to use
as a model to get their own Zopes and Apaches working.  This is
proof-of-concept mode.

2) To provide our community with yet another way of publishing their
objects.  This is production-mode.

Zope works with Apache.  It may not be the easiest thing to set up, and
there are some trickies that aren't usualy encountered with the other
Zope methods, but in general, once you get the hang of setting Zope up
with Apache it's pretty straightforward.

Apache has many, many, many knobs on it.  Out of the box Apache comes
with all it's many, many, many knobs turned to 1) facilitate general
filesystem and *traditional* CGI serving, and 2) be secure.  Zope goes
against the grain of item 1 because it's more advanced than a bunch of
static HTML files and one-spawn-per-hit perl scripts.  Item 2 offers a
bit of dificulty because Apache comes configured to be
highly-restrictive, with most opetions turned off by default.  When you
add new directives to Apache, you must often turn on specific
functionality for that specific area.

I am working on a FAQ for Zope and Apache.  It is a bit bare because the
most frequently asked question is "My Zope+Apache doesn't work, I get a
404!  What's wrong?"  This question will not go into the FAQ because it
is too general; there are a whole lot of situations, many of them not
related to Zope, which will cause you to get a 404.  When I sent out the
first pre-release I got one response, and that was from Paul.  His
comments reflect the second pre-release.  So, from the developer to the
community, I ask you to:

1) Please brainstorm up some questions; specific technical questions,
(and the answer if you know it!) related to you experienced with getting
Zope to work with Apache.

2) If you are are having problems with Zope and Apache, please download
the pre-release, even if you don't intend to use it, just play with it,
fondle it, tell me where it breaks for you, and examine it's
configuration to see if it can help you with your specific problem with
your Apache.

Kudos go to Kevin Dangoor for his post today on getting Zope to work in
.htaccess files, we didn't know that Apache would rewrite the whole
environment when you use a RewriteRule in a .htaccess until Kevin butted
up against it and provided us with accurate information.  He has been
given a patch which fixes his problem and will be availble in the next
release.

Remember, Zope is Open Source because we want your involvement, we thing
your smarter than Microsoft does, we need your contributions, we are
junkies for a bug fix, we're old levis looking for a patch, it's a
community effort!

Michel