Choose the location of your Zope instance. It can be located anywhere under your home directory. Use the mkzopeinstance.py script to create your instance:

  $ /usr/local/lib/zope/bin/mkzopeinstance.py
  
  Please choose a directory in which you'd like to install
  Zope "instance home" files such as database files, configuration
  files, etc.
  
  Directory: /home/myself/myzope
  
  Please choose a username and password for the initial user.
  These will be the credentials you use to initially manage
  your new Zope instance.

The script will also prompt you for the administrator username and password you will need to log into your instance.

Open up ~/myzope/etc/zope.conf from your favorite text editor. Leave the port number set to 8080 (even if you plan to use Zope as your default web server), but it is crucial that you set the ip-address parameter to your own v-host IP address (if you don't know it, see csoftadm -c 'dns list').

Your Zope instance is now ready to run. Execute the startup script:

  $ ~/myzope/bin/runzope

You can ignore any warnings about deprecated calls.

Now you should make sure that your Zope instance will be automatically started whenever the server is rebooted (or whenever a backup server kicks in). This is done by adding a @reboot entry to your crontab:

  $ crontab -e

If you are not familiar with the crontab utility, the previous command will start up your favorite text editor (as dictated by $EDITOR). Simply insert the line:

  @reboot $HOME/myzope/bin/zopectl start

It is a good idea to insert a MAILTO="yourself@domain.ext" line into your crontab such that any startup error messages will be e-mailed to you.

You can also use the zopectl utility to control a running Zope instance:

  $ ~/myzope/bin/zopectl status
  $ ~/myzope/bin/zopectl stop
  $ ~/myzope/bin/zopectl start

• Zope Documentation