[Zope] Hi + question

[Steven Hodgen]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Andreas Jung [mailto:lists at andreas-jung.com] 
>Sent: Friday, July 16, 2004 8:46 PM
>To: Steven Hodgen; zope at zope.org
>Subject: Re: [Zope] Hi + question
>
>
>
>--On Freitag, 16. Juli 2004 15:27 Uhr -0700 Steven Hodgen 
><shodgen at solomonschool.com> wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I'm pretty new to Zope (even newer to Zope on Linux) and I'm 
>having a 
>> few problems getting it installed and running properly.
>>
>> I've successfully installed and run Zope, but to achieve as 
>a non-root 
>> user, I must install Zope and an instance in my '~' directory.  This 
>> is great, but I do need to be able to run Zope at port 80.  
>As a side 
>> note, many of the docs on Zope.org treat doing this as a 
>minor issue, 
>> and seem to promote the idea of running it at 8080.  I'm a little 
>> confused by this.  I understand that this has some security 
>> advantages, but I don't understand why anyone would do this under 
>> normal circumstances.  I mean, no one goes to  www.blah.net:8080
>>
>> Pardon me if I'm being ignorant, but I would think this would be the 
>> exception, rather than rule.  Zope.org gives me the impression that 
>> 8080 is (or should be) the rule.
>>
>
>
>Andreas Jung writes:
>- it is not recommended to install and run Zope as root.
>- if you install and run it as zope, you have to adjust the 
>user settings in etc/zope.conf
>- don't run Zope as server on the internet *without* any 
>reverse proxy like squid or apache
>
>-aj

I'm somewhat confused.  The default install location for Zope is /opt.  In
order to install here, you must do it via root.  The only thing I've done as
root, is 'sudo make install', since I must.  Now, the installation tutorial
on 'plope.org', recommends doing it this way, although it is true that the
INSTALL.txt file in doc/ does recommend not installing as root, but the
default location would seem to indicate otherwise.  I've seen references to
installing to /usr/local, and a user's /home.  Please understand that I'm
not a linux guru, at least not yet.  I have, however, been a software
engineer for years, since '80, but only recently have I started exploring
linux.  At this point, the proper method for utilizing the linux directory
hierarchy is a bit of a mystery.  All I know is that I want to install Zope
in a way which is most consistent with the intent of Linux Filesystem
Hierarchy "standard?", which is somewhat unclear as to where third party
software should be installed.  It seems that /usr/local and /opt are valid
locations, with /opt being, perhaps, primary.  That being the case, /opt
would seem a very reasonable place to put Zope, although based on this
standard Zope's log files should be somewhere in /var/log, and it's data
files somewhere else in /var, since the data changes via ZMI?  Please
overlook what may be obvious ignorance.  You may well feel that Installing
and running Zope is not the best tutorial for a linux newbie, but that's how
I learn everything.  I just jump in with both feet.  I want a secure system,
and perhaps 8080 is good for now, but I would want to be able to easily
change to 80 without having to reinstall Zope, etc.

Based on some reading, I was under the impression that it was ok to run Zope
as root, since it automatically  lowered it's user status to the one in
zope.cfg after performing some root required initializations.

Ok, I'm finished displaying my newbie status, at least for the moment.  :-)

Thanks for your help and patience.

--Steven