[Zope] The best way to set up Multiple Zopes?

[mindlace]

"J. Atwood" wrote:

> I want to set up multiple Zope's on my Linux Box (6.1 running Apache with
> Virtual Hosts). The sites need to respond to different URLs and I think they
> should have different ZODBs. So... the questions are...
> 
> 1) What is the best way to do this? (Proxy Pass, Zope.cgi, etc)

I think ProxyPass is the "cleanest" way to do this.  You need an IP for
each of them, and I've found no way to do it "virtually" (the way you
can with SiteRoots, etc.)  The zope talks to the same IP as the
VirtualHost, but on differing ports.
 
> 2) Has anyone done this and what has been their experience?

I've done it a few times, and I'd have to say that you're really better
off virtualhosting with a naked Zope using siteaccess if you have
multiple sites per Zope, or just straight if you're not.

If you're doing SSL, of course, that's not an option (but see m2crypto).

<dtml-if opinion>
I do not believe there is any compelling reason to have different ZODBs,
unless you're determined to have Product differentiation per site. The
upcomimg debut of ZEO is all the more reason to minimise your number of
ZODB's, *especially* since, with ZEO, you can have a unified object
store and then have differentiated Products in the Zopes that "front"
it.  

People can do 95% of the things they could do with products using DTML
and Python methods.  The remaining 5% - which mostly involve playing
with the filesystem - aren't the kind of things I think should be handed
to an end user, especially if you're not doing some sort of encryption
for *every* type of access they do.
</dtml-if>
 
> 3) Are there any resource issues in terms of memory, processor, etc?

My production zope is utilizing about 80 megabytes of ram.  That's
compiled from source, using installed python.  My Zope installed with
it's own python is occupying about 36MB, and it is, essentially, "idle".
I'm using the standard 6 open threads each, and have seen no sign (thus
far) that they're saturating those open threads.

I have done nothing to manage the amount of memory or resources my Zopes
take: it is my understanding that you can talk them into being leaner.
You can, of course, reduce the number of threads per zope.

When a thread goes "active" it consumes 20-30% of cpu on my AMD K6-III
400. Inactive threads consume 1-3% of cpu.

Good luck!
-- 
ethan mindlace fremen        mindlace@imeme.net
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