Zope and Plone on ArchLinux

Requisites

Zope 2 is available as package in the extra repository. Plone is not available for Zope 3. Use pacman to install it:

    [root@myhost ~]# pacman -Sy zope2
    :: Synchronizing package databases... 
    :: current is up to date
    :: extra is up to date

    Targets: zope2-2.8.1-1

    Total Package Size:   9.3 MB

    Proceed with upgrade? [Y/n] y

    checking package integrity... done.
    loading package data... done.
    checking for file conflicts... done.
    installing zope2... done.

Create Zope User and Group

Each Zope instance needs a system user. It's good practice to use different users/groups when running multiple zope instances:

    [root@myhost ~]# groupadd -g 50 zope
    [root@myhost ~]# useradd -u 50 -g zope -d /var/lib/zope -c "zope instance" -s /bin/false zope

Create a Zope instance

Files should only be accessible by the the zope system user:

    [root@myhost ~]# /opt/zope/bin/mkzopeinstance.py 
    Please choose a directory in which you'd like to install
    Zope "instance home" files such as database files, configuration
    files, etc.

    Directory: /var/lib/zope
    Please choose a username and password for the initial user.
    These will be the credentials you use to initially manage
    your new Zope instance.

    Username: admin
    Password: *****
    Verify password: *****
    [root@myhost ~]# chown -R  zope:zope /var/lib/zope/
    [root@myhost ~]# chmod -R o-rwx /var/lib/zope/

Zope configuration

Edit the Zope configuration file etc/zope.conf in your instance home:

    effective-user zope

Plone installation

Grab the sources from a mirror and extract it to the instance product directory:

    [root@myhost ~]# wget -q -O - http://mesh.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/plone/Plone-2.1.tar.gz |tar xzf - -C /tmp/
    [root@myhost ~]# mv /tmp/Plone-2.1/* /var/lib/zope/Products/
    [root@myhost ~]# chown -R zope:zope /var/lib/zope/Products/

Test your installation

Start Zope in foreground so you can spot any fatal errors:

    [root@myhost ~]# /var/lib/zope/bin/zopectl foreground

Via the Zope Management Interface you should be able to login as user admin. You should be able to add a Plone Site product. If everything works fine, start the Zope instance in daemon mode:

    [root@myhost ~]# /var/lib/zope/bin/zopectl start

Running Zope in an production environment

In most cases you will run Apache (or Squid) in front of Zope. Bind Zope to loopback adress instead of using the wildcard address. This can be done by setting ip-address 127.0.0.1 in etc/zope.conf. Virtual Hosting Services is a good further read.