Hi Michael,

As far as I can tell, you're the first user to ask about Zine.

I just set up a Zine blog under mod_wsgi without too much difficulty. Here's what I did:

1. Create a new MySQL database and make a note of the database name and password.

2. Create a new mod_wsgi app in the control panel, named for example 'myapp'.

3. Install Zine's Python dependencies with the following command:

PYTHONPATH=/home/username/webapps/myapp/lib/python2.5 easy_install-2.5 --install-dir=/home/username/webapps/myapp/lib/python2.5 --script-dir=/home/username/webapps/myapp/bin Werkzeug Jinja2 SQLAlchemy simplejson pytz Babel lxml==1.3.6

4. Download, build, and install Zine:

cd ~
wget http://zine.pocoo.org/releases/Zine-0.1.tar.gz
tar zxf Zine-0.1.tar.gz
cd ~/Zine-0.1
./configure --prefix=/home/username/webapps/myapp --python=/usr/local/bin/python2.5 && make install

5. Set up a blog directory:

mkdir ~/webapps/myapp/blog
cp ~/webapps/myapp/share/zine/servers/zine.wsgi ~/webapps/myapp/blog/

6. Edit zine.wsgi to point it at the proper directory by changing the INSTANCE_FOLDER variable:

INSTANCE_FOLDER = '/home/username/webapps/myapp/blog'

7. Configure Apache to serve the blog by adding the following to myapp's httpd.conf:

WSGIScriptAlias /blog /home/username/webapps/myapp/blog/zine.wsgi

8. Restart Apache

9. Go to the control panel and set up your mod_wsgi app on website record, wait a few minutes, then go to whateverdomain.com/blog and follow the Zine installation wizard. You'll need the database info from step one to set up the connection string.

Have fun!

It works! Thanks for such a detailed response. Looks nice too: http://www.python3000.com/blog

Michael

For the record I've moved the blog to: http://www.ironpythoninaction.com/news/

Getting the HTML parser to work also required me to install html5lib.

Makes sense

So, since you've been using Zine for a few days, any initial thoughts?

I really like it. It is very slick and although there is still a lot to do, what is there works very well (the admin interface is very impressive).

Once they add support for a WYSIWYG editor and a few other niceties then I will switch my main blog over to it. Currently it is basically HTML for adding new entries, but it is fine for the news blog I'm using it for. It is by the same folk who maintain projects like Sphinx, Pygments and so on - so I trust the code quality.

Once I've finished IronPython in Action I hope to be able to contribute some plugins.

Michael

allanw wrote:

When I run the command to install Zine's Python dependencies I get an error saying:

error: Setup script exited with error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1

I think the install of lxml is failing. Any help would be appreciated.

What's the exact command you're running? What's the complete output?

Allan - your server was missing the libxml2-devel and libxslt-devel packages. I've installed them, so you should be able to install the dependencies now. Also, since you're on a newer server, you can use the latest version of lxml, so the command would be:

PYTHONPATH=/home/allanw/webapps/zineapp/lib/python2.5 easy_install-2.5 --install-dir=/home/allanw/webapps/zineapp/lib/python2.5 --script-dir=/home/allanw/webapps/zineapp/bin Werkzeug Jinja2 SQLAlchemy simplejson pytz Babel lxml

Hope that helps!

Regards,

Sean F
--
WebFaction - Agile hosting for everyone
http://webfaction.com - http://twitter.com/webfaction

Thanks Sean, that fixed the problem. However, I have another issue. In the websites section of the control panel, I have the following set up:

- Application called 'django' (default application installed when I created my account) mapped to the URL '/'
- My Zine application ('zineapp') mapped to '/blog'

When I go to www.allanwhatmough.com/blog I see a page but the output is unstyled (as if it can't find the CSS). And going to blog/admin gives me a 404 error. Does anybody have any idea what I might have done wroing here? Thanks

Last edited by allanw (2009-01-12 16:26:10)

I changed it so that '/' pointed to my Zine application. I can now go to www.allanwhatmough.com/blog and it works. However, going to www.allanwhatmough.com gives me a mod_wsgi welcome message. Clearly, this isn't desirable, so it might only be a temporary solution.

My first try to setup Zine here resulted in the mod_wsgi-welcome page served out of the htdocs/index.py. I could not make out what was wrong. So I tried again and made a protocol.
what I kept from the previous try:
subdomain: hattusa.urigal.net
the mysql db
Here is what I did (my server is web 16):
creating new app: hattusa as mod_wsgi 2.0/Python 2.5
Preparing the dependencies according to the manual above with addition of html5lib for the version 0.1.2 of zine according to their installation manual
PYTHONPATH=/home/nergal/webapps/hattusa/lib/python2.5 easy_install-2.5 --install-dir=/home/nergal/webapps/hattusa/lib/python2.5 --script-dir=/home/nergal/webapps/hattusa/bin Werkzeug Jinja2 SQLAlchemy simplejson pytz Babel lxml==1.3.6

For Werkzeug I only got warnings concerning 'THANKS' and 'TODO'
For Jinja2:
warning: no files found matching 'Makefile'
warning: no files found matching 'ez_setup.py'
warning: no previously-included files matching '*' found under directory 'docs/_build/doctrees'
For lxml-1.3.6:
warning: no previously-included files found matching 'doc/pyrex.txt'
warning: no previously-included files found matching 'src/lxml/etree.pxi'
The manual of zine states: lxml* [2.0 or higher]
installing lxml without defining 1.3.6 did not work (it tried to get lxml-2.2beta2 and exited "command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1")
I added html5lib without any hassle, this also is according to the zine-manual
---
zine itself:
wget http://zine.pocoo.org/releases/Zine-0.1.2.tar.gz
tar zxf Zine-0.1.2.tar.gz 
cd Zine-0.1.2
./configure --prefix=/home/nergal/webapps/hattusa --python=/usr/local/bin/python2.5 && make install
mkdir ~/webapps/hattusa/blog
cp ~/webapps/hattusa/share/zine/servers/zine.wsgi ~/webapps/hattusa/blog/
cd ~/webapps/hattusa/blog/
nano zine.wsgi
Altered to INSTANCE_FOLDER = '/home/nergal/webapps/hattusa/blog'
cd ../apache2/conf/
nano httpd.conf
Added at the end: WSGIScriptAlias /blog /home/nergal/webapps/hattusa/blog/zine.wsgi
cd ../bin/
---
Now I created a new Website in the WebfactioPanel:
named: hattusa
Subdomains: hattusa.urigal.net
mapped to: '/blog'
---
back in the shell I restarted Apache:
sh restart
---
waited a few minutes ...
And again http://hattusa.urigal.net/blog shows only the welcome message.
The error_log of the Apache2 after the restart:
[Sun Feb 01 05:53:39 2009] [warn] mod_wsgi: Compiled for Python/2.5.
[Sun Feb 01 05:53:39 2009] [warn] mod_wsgi: Runtime using Python/2.5.1.
[Sun Feb 01 05:53:39 2009] [warn] mod_wsgi: Python module path '/home/nergal/webapps/hattusa/lib/python2.5:/usr/local/lib/python25.zip:/usr/local/lib/python2.5/:/usr/local/lib/python2.5/plat-linux2:/usr/local/lib/python2.5/lib-tk:/usr/local/lib/python2.5/lib-dynload'.
[Sun Feb 01 05:53:39 2009] [notice] Apache/2.0.52 (Red Hat) mod_wsgi/2.0 Python/2.5.1 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Sun Feb 01 05:53:40 2009] [error] server reached MaxClients setting, consider raising the MaxClients setting
---
So I altered httpd.conf: ServerLimit 5 #instead of 2, restarted it.
The same part after the restart as above except the MaxClients error.
But no Zine shows up. What am I doing wrong? I'm at the end of my wits.
Thanks for any suggestions.

Last edited by Nergal (2009-02-01 06:16:11)

Thanks for the quick reply Sean.

I of course wanted to check out: http://hattusa.urigal.net/blog/blog ... it was not zine but the Internal ServerError from below.

I did as you wrote - the effect was even worse:
http://hattusa.urigal.net/blog -> Internal Server Error
http://hattusa.urigal.net -> Not application mounted at the root of this domain (well, the only working part it seems )

I tried to understand wether there was something funny in my installation. So I thought about setting up a temporary test-server via the Zine script:
[nergal@web16 hattusa]$ PYTHONPATH=/home/nergal/webapps/hattusa/lib/python2.5 ./share/zine/scripts/server -I blog
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./share/zine/scripts/server", line 15, in ?
    from werkzeug import run_simple, Response, DispatcherMiddleware
ImportError: cannot import name Response

Maybe it has nothing to do with the other problem, but I hope it gives you a hint ...

Thanks




Oh and an additional question (if I ever will see it running*g*): I have a testing version with the 'built-in' server running at home with an sqlite3-db. Will that work, as well? I read webfaction has sqlite-support, though not via panel.

Awww! Thank you so much!

That's sooo cool!