Installing Zope/Plone v4.2.1 With The Unified Installer In Centos

wget https://launchpad.net/plone/4.2/4.2.1/+download/Plone-4.2.1-UnifiedInstaller.tgz && tar xvfz Plone-4.2.1-UnifiedInstaller.tgz

cd Plone-4.2.1-UnifiedInstaller; vi README.txt (use esc :q to exit the editor)

The /opt directory is for "optional" software installs
The /srv directory is for serving content: mp3s, images, pdfs, etc

each of these directories should be empty on a default normal Centos install.

For this howto we're going to install a zeo cluster into /srv/Plone. /opt/Plone is also a valid choice that will not harm your Centos install. For different install methods, please see the README.txt referred to above. The command below will compile and install into /srv/Plone Plone, Zope and Python.
This will not harm your existing system Python which Centos needs to operate normally.

Issue the following as root or with the appropriate sudo privileges:

sudo ./install.sh zeo --target=/srv/Plone --password=mypass

This will create the following directories:
/srv/Plone
/srv/Plone/buildout-cache
/srv/Plone/Python-2.7
/srv/Plone/zeocluster

cd /srv/Plone/zeocluster; sudo vi buildout.cfg (hit i to insert text, esc :qw to exit and write the changes)

Under the [buildout] section after: eggs = Plone
add in:
############################################
# Eggs
# ----
# Add an indented line to the eggs section for any Python
# eggs or packages you wish to include.
#
eggs =
    Plone
    Pillow
    collective.fancyzoomview
    collective.plonetruegallery

Also under: zcml = 
add in:
############################################
# ZCML Slugs
# ----------
# Some eggs need ZCML slugs to tell Zope to
# use them. Eggs with names beginning with "Products."
# usually don't need this.
zcml =
#    plone.reload
     collective.fancyzoomview
     collective.plonetruegallery

IMPORTANT: If you get errors on the next command make sure you've used the same leading indentation, values for an option like eggs = subsequent lines should be indented 4 spaces.

Save and exit the file and run this command:

sudo bin/buildout

[user@localhost zeocluster]$ sudo bin/buildout
Uninstalling zopepy.
Uninstalling client2.
Uninstalling client1.
Updating zope2.
Updating fake eggs.
Updating productdistros.
Updating zeoserver.
Installing client1.
Getting distribution for 'collective.fancyzoomview'.
Got collective.fancyzoomview 0.4.2.
Getting distribution for 'collective.plonetruegallery'.
Got collective.plonetruegallery 0.7.1.
Generated script '/srv/Plone/zeocluster/bin/client1'.
Installing client2.
Generated script '/srv/Plone/zeocluster/bin/client2'.
Installing zopepy.
Generated interpreter '/srv/Plone/zeocluster/bin/zopepy'.
Updating zopeskel.
Updating chown.
chown: Running 
chmod 600 .installed.cfg
touch /srv/Plone/zeocluster/var/zeoserver/zeoserver.log
find /srv/Plone/buildout-cache/eggs -type d -name LC_MESSAGES -exec chown -R zeo \{\} \;
chown -R zeo /srv/Plone/zeocluster/var/filestorage
chmod 700 /srv/Plone/zeocluster/var/filestorage
chown -R zeo /srv/Plone/zeocluster/var/zeoserver
chmod 700 /srv/Plone/zeocluster/var/zeoserver
chown -R zeo /srv/Plone/zeocluster/var/client?
chmod 700 /srv/Plone/zeocluster/var/client?
Updating backup.
Updating unifiedinstaller.
Updating precompile.
precompiling python scripts in /srv/Plone/zeocluster/products
precompiling python scripts in /srv/Plone/zeocluster/parts/productdistros
[user@localhost zeocluster]$

sudo bin/plonectl zeoserver start
zeoserver: . daemon process started, pid=3975

sudo bin/plonectl client1 fg
client1: /srv/Plone/zeocluster/parts/client1/bin/runzope -X debug-mode=on

You should see a lot of output here after the initial lines above, the final line that lets us know all is well looks like this: 2009-10-20 17:43:47 INFO Zope Ready to handle requests

First we'll need to create the directory for storing our new data.fs by hand:
sudo mkdir /srv/Plone/zeocluster/var/filestorage/mysite

Next we'll need to alter our buildout.cfg accordingly, this method will mimic the file structure in the ZMI (Zope Management Interface):

Put this at the very bottom of the buildout.cfg:

[client1]
zope-conf-additional =
    <zodb_db mysite>
    <filestorage>
    path ${buildout:directory}/var/filestorage/mysite/Data_mysite.fs
    </filestorage>
    mount-point /mysite
    </zodb_db>

    <zodb_db mysite2>
    <filestorage>
    path ${buildout:directory}/var/filestorage/mysite2/Data_mysite2.fs
    </filestorage>
    mount-point /mysite2
    </zodb_db>

effective-user = plone (change this to "zeo" like the example below, this gives the proper read/write privileges to the new directory to create the new data.fs)
effective-user = zeo

save and exit, re-run buildout, restart the zeoserver and client1
(sudo bin/buildout; sudo bin/plonectl zeoserver start; sudo bin/plonectl client1 fg)

Next, visit your site @ http://ip:port and from the dropdown in the upper right choose ZODB Mountpoint. From there you should see your new mountpoint, select and create it. Click on the newly created folder and from the same dropdown in the upper right select "Plone Site". Give your new site an id and create it.

<VirtualHost *:80>
 ServerAdmin admin@mysite.org
 ServerName mysite.org
 ServerAlias www.mysite
 DocumentRoot /var/www/html/mysite.org
 ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /var/www/html/mysite.org/cgi-bin/
 SecRuleInheritance Off
 CustomLog logs/mysite.org_access_log combined
 ErrorLog logs/mysite.org_error_log
 RewriteEngine On
 RewriteLog /var/log/httpd/mysite.org_rewrite.log
 RewriteLogLevel 1 #9 for debugging#
 RewriteRule ^/sitemap.xml.gz$ http://127.0.0.1:8181/VirtualHostBase/http/%{SERVER_NAME}:80/mysite/mysite.org/VirtualHostRoot/sitemap.xml.gz [L,P]
 RewriteRule ^/(.*)/$ http://127.0.0.1:8181/VirtualHostBase/http/%{SERVER_NAME}:80/mysite/mysite.org/VirtualHostRoot/$1 [L,P]
 RewriteRule ^/(.*) http://127.0.0.1:8181/VirtualHostBase/http/%{SERVER_NAME}:80/mysite/mysite.org/VirtualHostRoot/$1 [L,P]
</VirtualHost>

Please see this information on further hardening your server against HTTP attacks and making Zope only listen locally for requests:
https://weblion.psu.edu/trac/weblion/wiki/SecureZope

In buildout.cfg at the top under [buildout], for example, we have:
extends =
        versions.cfg
        versions2.cfg
If both versions.cfg and versions2.cfg have a collective.foo = $version statement, the one in versions2.cfg is going to preside over versions.cfg. So in versions2.cfg we'll add a line at the top:

[versions]
collective.plonetruegallery = 0.7.1

The benefit of pinning versions is so we don't wind up with unexpected results when running subsequent buildouts which may break our sites, effectively "pinning" a product to a specific version. We make backups or ideally run on dev servers/instances to test new versions of products/addons with our existing sites.

Also, check out: http://good-py.appspot.com/