N.B. The examples assume you are using a Linux-based operating system.
- Do a subversion checkout of the instancemanager (opens new window) product into an appropriate location, by entering the following:
svn co [http://svn.plone.org/svn/collective/instancemanager/trunk/](https://href.li/?http://svn.plone.org/svn/collective/instancemanager/trunk/) instancemanager
- Install instancemanager by entering the following command from within the instancemanager folder (this will ensure instancemanager runs from the checked out directory and can be easily updated):
sudo python setup.py develop
- The first time you run instancemanager (just type instancemanager and press Enter), it creates an .instancemanager directory in your home directory. There you’ll find a userdefaults.py that you can customise to your local needs. The most relevant configuration directives you may want to change are the following:
zope_instance_template (where your zope instances will reside)
zope_location_template (the location where your zope server software resides - N.B. this can use python string substitution, e.g. /opt/zope/zope%(zope_version)s)
user (default admin username)
password (default admin password)
- Following that, create a file called PROJECTNAME**.py** (can be empty) in the .instancemanager directory, customising that with project-specific settings (just copy the few items that you want to change from userdefaults.py.
archive_basedir_template (the directory where all your zope/plone compressed product files are stored)
symlink_basedir_template (the directory where you store your svn product checkouts)
archivebundle_basedir_template (the directory where you store your zope/plone compressed product bundles - usually the same as archive_basedir_template)
symlinkbundle_basedir_template (the directory where you store your svn bundle checkouts - usually the same as symlink_basedir_template)
python (the path to your zope instance's python binary)
zope_version (the version of the zope instance that hosts your Plone site)
- Instancemanager expects to find the python/zope server software in a structured folder hierarchy (e.g. /opt/zope/zope2.9.6 and /opt/python/python2.4.4). I’ve found the easiest way to set this up is to use the Universal Installers listed on plone.org (opens new window) and modify the configuration directives in the install.sh bash script to point to those locations (for example, instead of pointing to /opt/Plone-2.5/ have them point to /opt/zope/zope2.9.6 and /opt/python/python2.4.4 respectively).
- Copy the Data.fs with your Plone site’s test data into the zope_instance_template/datafs folder, ensuring it’s renamed to PROJECTNAME.fs.
cp Data.fs ~/instances/datafs/PROJECTNAME.fs
- Create the zope instance.
instancemanager fresh PROJECTNAME
- All going well, you should now have a new zope instance created for your Plone site accessible via the standard methods, i.e. http://localhost:8080/manage
- Some further documentation regarding instancemanager can be found here (opens new window). Some of the commands I often use are:
instancemanager fresh PROJECTNAME (creates a new zope instance, including setting up all the Plone products as specified in the project file and also creates a new Plone site)
instancemanager --products PROJECTNAME (just recreates the Products directory and all contained products)
instancemanager soft PROJECTNAME (stops and starts the zope instance and reinstalls the products specified in the main_products configuration directive in the project file)
instancemanager test PROJECTNAME (runs the tests for the main Plone product specified in the project file)
instancemanager --test MyPloneProduct PROJECTNAME (runs the tests for the specified Plone product, i.e. MyPloneProduct)