Plone 3.3 Site Administration

Alex Clark

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Overview

Table of Contents

The Author

Reviews

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Covers Plone basics from a site administrator's perspective
Learn how to use Buildout to develop, deploy, and maintain a modern Plone site
Enhance the functionality and appearance of your web site by using third-party add-ons
Features many useful Buildout recipes from the Python Package Index
Written by Alex Clark, an expert Plone site administrator and member of the plone.org infrastructure team

Book Details

Language : English
Paperback : 240 pages [ 235mm x 191mm ]
Release Date : July 2010
ISBN : 1847197043
ISBN 13 : 978-1-847197-04-7
Author(s) : Alex Clark
Topics and Technologies : All Books, Content Management (CMS), Open Source, Plone

Preface
Chapter 1: Background
Chapter 2: Site Basics
Chapter 3: Appearance
Chapter 4: Administration
Chapter 5: Deployment and Maintenance
Chapter 6: Optimization
Chapter 7: Security
Chapter 8: The Future
Index

Preface

Chapter 1: Background
- Site administration essentials
  - Development
  - Deployment
  - Maintenance
- What you need to get started
  - Modern computer
  - Supported operating system
  - Internet connection
  - Terminal window
  - Text editor
- About Plone installers
- About Python software distributions
  - Using Python on Mac OS X
    - Verify that Python works
  - Installing Python on Windows
    - Download the Python installer
    - Run the Python installer
    - Configure the Environment Variable—Path
    - Verify that Python works
    - Install PyWin
  - Using Python on Ubuntu Linux
    - Verify that Python works
- How to install Distribute—a framework for managing Python packages
  - Installing Distribute on Mac OS X
    - Download distribute_setup.py
    - Execute distribute_setup.py
    - Verify that Distribute works
  - Installing Distribute on Windows 7
    - Download distribute_setup.py
    - Execute distribute_setup.py
    - Verify that Distribute works
  - Installing Distribute on Ubuntu Linux
    - Download distribute_setup.py
    - Execute distribute_setup.py
    - Verify that Distribute works
- How to install PIP: a more user friendly Python package installer
  - Installing PIP on Mac OS X
  - Installing PIP on Windows 7
  - Installing PIP on Ubuntu Linux
- How to install Buildout—a tool for building software
  - Installing Buildout on Mac OS X
  - Installing Buildout on Windows 7
  - Installing Buildout on Ubuntu Linux
- More about Python software distributions
- How to install a C compiler
  - Installing a C compiler on Mac OS X
    - Installing XCode
    - Verify that GCC works
  - Installing a C compiler on Windows
    - Downloading MinGW
    - Installing MinGW
    - Adding MinGW to the Environment Variable—Path
    - Verify that GCC works
    - Configuring Distutils
  - Installing a C compiler on Ubuntu Linux
    - Verify that GCC works
    - Installing additional development libraries
- How to install Subversion—a version control system
  - Using Subversion on Mac OS X
    - Verify that Subversion works
  - Installing Subversion on Windows
    - Downloading Subversion
    - Installing Subversion
    - Verify that Subversion works
  - Installing Subversion on Ubuntu Linux
    - Verify that Subversion works
- How to install Python with Buildout
  - Running the first buildout
  - Running the second buildout
  - Verify that Python works
- Summary

Chapter 2: Site Basics
- More about Buildout
  - Configuration file format
  - About the Python buildout
    - The buildout section
    - Adding parts
  - Global versus local Buildout command
  - Introducing the Plone buildout
    - Using the extends parameter to specify versions
    - Using plone.recipe.zope2install to install Zope 2
    - Using plone.recipe.zope2instance to create a Zope 2 instance
    - The PIL problem
    - Bootstrapping and running the buildout
  - Adding a Plone site
    - Starting Plone and adding a Plone site manually
    - Changing the top-level Zope user's password
    - Adding a Plone site with Buildout
- Customizing site navigation
  - Plone 3 navigation portlet extended
  - Installing collective.portlet.explore
  - Installing webcouturier.dropdownmenu
- Adding new content types
  - Adding a blog entry type
    - Configure the blog_view
    - Configure the RSS feed
- Summary

Chapter 3: Appearance
- Installing themes with Buildout
  - Searching for themes on plone.org
  - Adding themes with Buildout
  - Installing themes in Plone
- Examining themes with Omelette and Python
  - Installing and using Omelette
  - Exploring modules with zopepy
- Overview of theme package files
- Creating a theme package with ZopeSkel
  - Adding ZopeSkel to a buildout
  - Running ZopeSkel
  - Running Paster
- Examining themes in the Zope Management Interface
- Making changes through the Web
  - portal_skins
  - portal_view_customizations
- Summary

Chapter 4: Administration
- Configuring mail settings in a development environment
  - Setting up the mail host
  - Avoiding the mail host
  - Faking the mail host
- User and group management: Out of the box
  - The Zope 2 administrator account
  - The Plone administrator account
  - Resetting the password
- Users and groups management with LDAP
  - Adding plone.app.ldap to the Buildout
  - Adding plone.app.ldap to Plone
  - Configuring plone.app.ldap
    - LDAP Terminology
    - Entering the form data
    - Restarting Plone
  - Using LDAP in Plone
    - Creating and using LDAP groups
- Summary

Chapter 5: Deployment and Maintenance
- Creating a production buildout
- Backing up your database
  - The repozo utility
  - Making repozo easier with collective.recipe.backup
  - A simple backup strategy
- Automating database backups
  - Using z3c.recipe.usercrontab on Mac OS X and Ubuntu Linux
  - Using Task Scheduler on Windows
- Restoring your database from a backup
- Packing your database
- Automate database packing
- Rotating logs
  - Using iw.rotatezlogs on Mac OS X, Ubuntu Linux, and Windows
- Summary

Chapter 6: Optimization
- Caching background in the context of Plone
- Installing CacheFu—a caching add-on for Plone
- Installing Varnish—a caching agent
- Installing Squid—a caching agent
- Creating multiple instances with Buildout macros
- Load balancing in the context of Plone
  - Installing HAProxy—a load balancer
    - The HAProxy binary
    - The HAProxy configuration file
  - Installing Pound—a load balancer
    - The Pound binary
    - The Pound configuration file
- Installing Supervisor—a process manager
- Understanding the software stack
  - Frontend Apache configuration
  - Frontend Nginx configuration
- Installing Munin plugins to analyze performance
  - Installing the munin.zope package
  - Testing the munin.zope plugins through the Web
  - Installing the munin.zope plugins on the command line
  - Testing the munin.zope plugins on the command line
  - Munin graphs
    - ZODB activity
    - Zope cache parameters
    - Zope memory usage
    - Zope 2 server threads
- Summary

Chapter 7: Security
- Restricting TCP/IP access to localhost or LAN host
- Managing IP addresses and ports effectively
- Configuring the Zope 2 effective user dynamically
- Installing Cassandra to audit through the web (TTW) security
  - Permissions and roles in the ZMI
  - Roles and groups
  - Cassandra
- Applying security and bug fixes to Plone
  - Using a newer Zope 2 with an older release of Plone
    - Hold on to your buildouts
    - A "modern" Plone 2.1 buildout
- Summary

Chapter 8: The Future
- Specifying package versions
- Executing Buildout in offline mode
- Analyzing the contents of our buildout
- Staying calm when trouble arises
- Upgrading to Plone 4
- Summary

Index

Alex Clark

Alex Clark is a Plone Consultant from Bethesda, MD, USA. He runs a thriving Plone consultancy along with his wife, Amy Clark. Together, they service a wide variety of government, corporate, and non-profit organizations in the greater Washington, D.C. area, and worldwide. For more information, please see http://aclark.net.This is his first book and he hopes that people enjoy the result and get inspired to use Plone.

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Sample chapters

You can view our sample chapters and prefaces of this title on PacktLib or download sample chapters in PDF format.

Find your book in our support section to find errata and to download code samples.

What you will learn from this book

The basics of Plone site administration
Installing Python, Distribute, Buildout, PIP, Plone, and more
Changing the appearance of your Plone site with freely available, professional-looking themes
Automating maintenance tasks to keep your site running smoothly with less effort
Securing, backing up, and monitoring your Plone site
Maximizing the performance of your Plone site by applying various site optimization techniques

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In Detail

In the past few years, we have seen some dramatic changes in the way Plone sites are being developed, deployed, and maintained. As a result, developing and deploying sites, changing their default settings, and performing day to day maintenance tasks can be a challenge.

This book covers site administration tasks, from setting up a development instance, to optimizing a deployed production site, and more. It demonstrates how-to perform these tasks in a comprehensive way, and walks the user through the necessary steps to achieve results.

We have divided the subject of Plone site administration into three categories: development, deployment, and maintenance. We begin by explaining how a Plone site is built, and how to start using it through the web. Next, we add features by installing add-on products, focusing on themes, blogging, and other common enhancements. After the basics of developing and deploying a Plone site are covered, the book covers the basics of maintaining it.

Further, throughout the book we preview some new technologies related to Plone site administration, available now as add-ons to the current Plone release. Finally, we will cover a variety of techniques to help you optimize your site's performance.

This book presents a modern, customizable approach to keeping your Plone site running smoothly.

Approach

This book is a step-by-step tutorial guide, explaining many common and fundamentally important Plone site administration tasks.

Who this book is for

This book is designed for site administrators, webmasters, or content editors managing a site with Plone. These users will not be new to Plone itself, but they will be new to the site administration tasks. The reader is also expected to know basic Python programming. This book caters to these users, and builds their confidence by helping them to get their Plone sites up, running, and customized with minimal peripheral knowledge.