[Zope] FYI: Running Zope off a CD-ROM

[Phil Harris]

Paul,

I've thought about doing something like this, but with a slight difference.

I would like Zope running on a CD-ROM but allow the user to add objects etc
and save the Odb to disk, but nothing else on the harddrive, only the odb.

Then at an appropriate time I would like an auto-synchronisation to take
place with the 'real' Zope Server, at our site.

This would allow me to use Zope as a distant learning tool.  The students
could do the course off-line and then sync with our server and allow marking
by a cource tutor at a later date.

I may very well take your bits and 'extend' them for my own use.  The HOW-TO
would be a great pointer for me though, so what you hanging around for, get
to it and do it ;).

Yours in anticipation,

Phil
phil@philh.org

----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Everitt <paul@digicool.com>
To: <zope@zope.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 12, 1999 11:57 AM
Subject: [Zope] FYI: Running Zope off a CD-ROM


>
> Howdy folks.  I thought I'd share the results of something we delivered
> yesterday and see if anyone here thinks it's useful.
>
> We are pursuing a contract for a think tank that wants to provide an
> interactive presentation of a data-driven policy decision.  The
> deliverable must run completely off a CD-ROM without installation of
> anything and use a standard web browser with no tricks.
>
> First we whipped up a quick Zope site that had a few cosmetic pieces in
> it.  For a demonstration application we took 1600 recent Zope mail
> messages, made a ZClass for them, then loaded them into Zope and
> catalogued them.
>
> Next we took the "read-only" machinery that _might_ be in Z2b4 (it's in
> my sandbox), that allows ZServer to run without writing a pid file or
> log file, and ZODB to run in-memory.  You're still allowed to do
> everything with the database -- add objects, undo, versions, etc. -- but
> no changes are made on disk.  When you quit, the changes are gone.  Very
> useful for giving demos as well.
>
> Finally I copied the directory onto a CD-R.  Sure enough, you just
> double-click on start.bat (I don't know anything about autorun) and,
> after a bit of a wait, everything runs just fine.  Absolutely nothing
> gets written to the hard drive.
>
> It's still a little rough.  First, there's a whole lot of unnecessary
> stuff being imported (like all the win32 stuff for running as a
> service), and thus the startup time is around 45 seconds.  With some
> serious tinkering I imagine that could be brought under control.
>
> But still it's a neat opportunity for Zope.  Where else can the app
> server _and_ database be cranked up with one click and leave your system
> in a nice state?  Try that with ColdFusion or Domino. :^)
>
> If anyone thinks this would make a good "How-To", either for the part
> about running in read-only mode or the mail archive application, lemme
> know.
>
> --Paul
>
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