Zope Installation Frequently Asked Questions
--------------------------------------------


  Installing Zope

    1. On certain Unix platforms (usually Solaris) I get a "checksum 
       error" untarring the Zope distribution. Whats the deal?

       Zope is built and distributed using GNU tar. Some vendor-supplied
       tar implementations have problems with long path names as they 
       appear in GNU tar created files. This is a problem that occurs in 
       a number of software distributions created using GNU tar, not just 
       Zope. We suggest that you install a GNU tar on your system to 
       avoid this problem (not just with Zope, but with other software 
       distributions as well).

    2. I am trying to build Zope on my BSD based system, but I
       keep getting "symbol not found" errors and the build
       scripts stop. What do I do?

       On some BSD based systems (BSDI, BSD/OS), you need to edit
       the Makefile.pre.in files in your Zope installation to add
       -rdynamic to the LDSHARED makefile variable. On some systems
       it may also be necessary to change the file named 'do.py'
       located in the 'inst' directory of your Zope installation,
       changing the line: do('make')  to: do('make -k').

    3. I am having trouble building Zope on my OpenBSD system.  I get
       some wierd compilation errors.

       Make sure you unpack Zope using GNU tar; you will not get any
       error messages with OpenBSD's standard tar, but your installation
       will be subtly broken due to problems with long path names.

    4. I am having trouble building Zope on a libc 5 Linux machine.
    
       Zope requires Python be built with glibc 2.x (libc 6) on Linux.

    5. I am trying to install Zope on a Windows NT/2000 machine, but
       I keep getting a dialog saying "corrupt installation detected".
       Is something wrong with the distribution file?

       No, to install Windows NT / 2000 you should be logged in with 
       "Administrator" privileges on the machine. If you are seeing
       the "corrupt installation detected" dialog, you probably don't
       have the required administrator privileges (your guess is as
       good as ours as to why you get that particular error message).


  Starting/Accessing your Zope installation

    1. After installing Zope, I go to the URL in my web browser
       but I get a "404 Not Found" or "Server Error" message

       Is the URL really correct? Are you running Zope behind another
       web server?  If so, this message is coming from your web server, 
       not Zope.  It usually means that your web server is misconfigured.

       Look in the error log for your web server for details of the error.


    2. I have installed Zope, and when I go to the URL in my web
       browser, I get a password prompt. Although I type in the correct
       username and password, I keep getting prompted. What is going on?

       Are you running another web server in front of Zope?
       Zope manages access control internally, but it relies on your
       web server software to relay any authentication information in
       web requests. Some web servers automatically filter this information
       out of requests passed to cgi programs. If you keep getting password
       prompts that never accept your password, this means that your web
       server is not properly configured to pass authentication info on to
       Zope. See the doc/WEBVSERVER.txt file for information on correctly
       configuring your web server to pass authentication information.


    3. I have installed Zope, and when I go to the URL in my web
       browser, I get a "Connection refused" error.

       Probably this means that Zope has failed to start.  You should try 
       to start Zope in the foreground and look for error messages.

       On Linux / Unix / OSX, you can do this by giving the command
       "./bin/runzope" or "./bin/zopectl fg"  in your zope instance
       (they are equivalent).

       On Windows, navigate to the Zope folder in your Start Menu and 
       click on "Run Zope in Console". A console window with process 
       startup information will be displayed.

       If there are errors, the last error shown should explain
       what went wrong.


    4. When I go to a URL for an application that isn't running, it
       takes quite a while to startup.  Why is that?

       The application has to get into memory and then get 
       the database loaded.  Depending on database file size, this might
       take a while. Packing your Zope database at regular intervals
       can reduce startup time.


    5. I have Zope with the Oracle Database adapter installed, and can't
       get it running. Why?

       If you have Oracle installed, you need to ensure that the
       environment variable "ORACLE_HOME" is in the environment of
       the running application. You can do this by adding a line to 
       the <environment> section of etc/zope.conf, such as:

       <environment>
           ORACLE_HOME /foo/bar/
       </environment>


    6. I have forgotten the only password used to access the site or
       I have modified the security settings in such a way that even
       I can't get access.  How do I fix it?

       Assuming you have write access to the directory where Zope is
       installed, you can create a temporary "emergency user" using
       the 'zpasswd.py' script::

           python bin/zpasswd.py access

       Follow the prompts to enter a user name and password.
       'zpasswd.py' will write the file named 'access'.  Zope will
       look for this file the next time it starts.  After restarting,
       browse to Zope's management interface and use the name and
       password you entered.

       As the emergency user, you are allowed to create user folders
       and user accounts as well as adjust security settings but you
       are not allowed to create objects like DTML methods or folders.
       This is a safety precaution.

       See more details in the file SECURITY.TXT.

  Managing the Zope process

    1. How do I find the application server in my process listing?

       When running Zope, there will be a .pid file in var/Z2.pid
       which contains two process IDs.

    2. If I have more than one Zope process running on the same
       machine, how do I tell them apart in "ps" listings?

       When running under ZServer, the Zope processes will show up in
       the listings with 'run.py'.  (You may need to do a long listing
       to see it.)  Look for the pids listed in var/Z2.pid. 

    3. Is it OK to use 'kill' to shut down the process?

       If you started zope with the command "zopectl start", the command
       "zopectl stop" will shut down Zope.

       You can also shut down the process using the Shutdown button in
       the Control Panel. Alternatively, the URL:

          'Control_Panel/manage_shutdown'

       will, with a suitable username and password, shutdown the
       application. If you need a non-interactive way to shutdown your
       application, e.g. from a script, then write a program that sends
       a web request to that URL with the appropriate username and
       password.

       If you must, you can shut down the application by killing it.
       The respective var/Z2.pid file will have the pids.


  Upgrading from Earlier Versions of Zope

    1. How can I upgrade to Zope 2.8?

       The usual procedure when installing a new version of Zope is:

       - Create a new instance (see doc/INSTALL.txt).

       - Copy the var/Data.fs file from your old instance into your 
         new instance's var/ directory. 

         It is best to do this while the old instance is not running; 
         alternatively, you can use repozo.py as described at 
         http://www.zope.org/Wikis/ZODB/FileStorageBackup 
         to make a live backup, then create a new Data.fs from that
         backup in your new instance.

         Keep your old Data.fs in the old instance as a backup.
        
       - Copy the Products and Extensions directories from your old 
         instance into the new instance.

         Leave the old instance directories intact as a backup.
 
       - Update etc/zope.conf with any changes you made in your
         old instance.  (Likewise for zeo.conf if you are using zeo.)

       - Start the new instance. (Be sure the old instance is not running.)

       - Update any ZCatalogs as described below. 

       - Update any Python Scripts. This is not strictly necessary,
         but it will make Zope restart somewhat faster.  Visit this URL 
         in your browser:

         http://.../manage_addProduct/PythonScripts/recompile


    2. After moving my old Data.fs to Zope 2.8 I get an 
       "AttributeError, _length" when trying to use the ZCatalog?

       In Zope 2.8 we cleaned up the index implementations and therefore
       you need to migrate every single ZCatalog manually.

       Notice: **YOU SHOULD BACKUP YOUR var/Data.fs file before starting 
       the migration**, see http://www.zope.org/Wikis/ZODB/FileStorageBackup 
       for backup instructions.

       To perform the migration:

        - go to the ZMI 

        - click on your ZCatalog instance (or portal_catalog inside
          your CMF or Plone instance)

        - you will get an "AttributeError, _length"...don't panic

        - call the "manage_convertIndexes" method of the ZCatalog 
          (by replacing the "manage_main" part of the URL with
           "manage_convertIndexes")

        - depending on the size of your ZCatalog the migration may
          take a while

        - after the conversion a message will appear: "Indexes
          converted and reindexed"


    3. CMF doesn't work!

        Check that you have a recent stable version of CMF.
        As of Zope 2.8.0, you need at least CMF-1.4.8.  
        CMF is available at http://www.zope.org/Products/CMF/


    4. Plone doesn't work!

        All Plone versions require a certain Zope version.
        Check the Plone release informations on http://www.plone.org


  General


    1. My browser is giving a message, 'Sorry, an error occurred.'
       How do I find out what the real error is?

       Step number one in these scenarios is to check the error log
       on your server. The standard error page should provide you with a 
       link directly to the log entry for that error.

       If something has gone wrong with the standard error page itself, 
       or if you are using a modified error page, this link may be 
       missing. If this happens, you can visit /event_log/manage_main and 
       browse the recent errors.

       In general, error_log will show the *traceback* for errors.
       This traceback explains the error message. 

       Occassionally you won't see any error message. Rather, the HTML 
       source will contain the last good HTML returned by the request
       before the error occurred. This is due to caching by the
       browser.  Clear your cache and view the HTML source again.


    2. I'm using Python 2.x and I'm having a problem ...

       The correct version of Python should always be automatically detected
       and used when you configure and install Zope. In general, you 
       should let the configure script do its job and don't try to 
       force an unsupported version of Python!