[Zope] Running ZopeHTTPServer and PCGI together = a bad thing ?

[Tony McDonald]

Michel,
Thanks for the reply...

>
>A wafer-thin CGI program is forked for every request, this is used to
>connect up Apache and the Zope long running process.  So yes, this
>expensive fork happens for every request.  It's no different, however,
>then other CGI overhead.  One of these days, someone is going to write a
>mod_pcgi module for Apache, and take that expensive fork out.  For light
>loads, it's really not noticeable, but for heavy loads, one fork per
>request gets heavy.  ZServer is noticably faster in this regard than
>Apache.

I didn't realise that the process was so lightweight, but as it seems 
that ZServer is the future (because ZopeHTTPServer is no longer being 
developed), then I'm off to ZServer land...

> >
>> I've used bbb.py from the Zope 2 distribution to create XML
>> transactions for 0.. 9211505 and 11844613... 11847812 (but that still
>> leaves 9211505..11844613 in limbo)
>>
>> unnh... so what are my options now?
>>
>
>Well, first realize that corruption is corruption, there may be no way
>to get some of your info back from the lala lands.  If two process
>writes conflicted with each other, one wins, and one looses (often the
>winner however does not win completely, but leave a corrupted record
>behind).

That's fair enough. I consider this a 'battle scar' gained on the 
proving grounds of Object-Orientated web delivery and will wear it 
with pride.

> > 1) Chop the database at location 11844613 (but then what about the
>> junk at 9211505)
>
>Hmm.. first off, does it crash your Zope when you try and use it
>correctly?  I would try wacking off the last 3K or so bytes starting at
>the last corrupted record, and then try exporting some stuff out, look
>for the point in managing the site where it breaks, this is probably
>where it encouters the broken record.

Actually, it doesn't crash when I use Zope correctly (although we've 
had some long response times on the server recently).

> > 2) export as much as possible to .bbe files and reimport into a clean
>> database?
>
>If you can export these objects, try this at least to preserve your
>information somewhere.

I'm doing this at the moment. I'm getting most of the data out and 
shifting it to another box - where I am NOT running PCGI at all (so 
no chance of doing the same mistake again). I've had some errors 
importing, but I'm breaking the (broken) site down into bits that do 
import and doing it that way.

I'll then start chopping bits of the end of the database and get as 
much as possible out that way.

> > 3) use the bbb.py from the Zope 2 distribution to get transactions in
>> XML (but then how do I recreate the database - bbb.py doesn't mention
>> creation of a database)?
>
>Uh yeah, the whole XML thing isn't complete yet.  The dump to XML is
>really for database inspection, not manipulation or transportation, for
>the moment.  This will probably change.

I'd like to make a BIG request that you do consider it as a 
manipulation/transportation vehicle as it would certainly put some 
peoples' minds at rest about the safety of their data.

Once again,
many thanks for the reply - at least I know what went wrong...
tone.
------
Dr Tony McDonald,  FMCC, Networked Learning Environments Project
The Medical School, Newcastle University Tel: +44 191 222 5888
Fingerprint: 3450 876D FA41 B926 D3DD  F8C3 F2D0 C3B9 8B38 18A2