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This document hasn't been checked for compatibility with current versions of Plone. Use at your own risk.

What does the server setup for the plone.org website look like?

What kind of hardware is running plone.org, and what versions of the software do you run?

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Specifications

The new plone.org server is a Dell Poweredge 2950 with the following specifications:

  • 2x Intel Xeon 5440 2.83Ghz Quad-core CPUs

  • 16GB RAM

  • 2x 250GB RAID-1 Array for OS

  • 4x 250GB RAID-10 Array for Zope (mounted on /srv)

  • 10 Megabit Internet connection

  • FreeBSD 7.4 OS

Operating System
plone.org is running FreeBSD 7.4 OS.
Python
Running Python 2.6.5
Zope
2.12.14
Plone
Running Plone 4.0.3
Products
Everything from the  PloneOrg buildout.

The Plone.org buildout contains the following new files:

  • bsd.cfg – Similar to new.cfg.  Extends buildout.cfg and includes FreeBSD-specific options. Also creates 8 Zope instances for Plone.org.
  • templates/nginx-production.conf.in – Nginx.conf configuration template which only adds the plone.org vhosts to the system-wide configuration.

Varnish

There is a system-wide varnish running on port 80 with the default configuration file. Varnish caches all content and fetches content from Nginx. 

Nginx

Nginx binds to localhost and takes care of virtual hosting and URL rewriting.  The configuration is located at /usr/local/etc/nginx.  Virtual hosts can be symlinked in /usr/local/etc/nginx/vhosts.

Pound

Pound configuration is located at /usr/local/etc/pound.cfg.

Supervisor

There is a system-wide supervisor installation with the configuration file located at /etc/supervisord.conf.

 
Disks
It has a two 250GB disk RAID-1 array for the operating system and four 250GB disk RAID-10 array for Zope.
Memory
16 GB total.
Traffic
During the month of May 2007, we had approx. 20 million hits.
Bandwidth
Our monthly bandwidth usage is about 200 GB.
Stats
Interested in the traffic statistics? Check out http://stats.plone.org/
System administration
plone.org is administered by the Plone infrastructure team.The Plone admins can be reached on the Plone Admins list. For more information please see the Plone.org Sysadmin Administrator's documentation.
 

About plone.org's new theme

In March 2009, plone.org was upgraded with a shiny new visual theme.  It's drawing rave reviews, and generating lots of questions.

Who designed the new plone.org theme?

The original design was done by Iain Claridge of Netsight.  Alexander Limi and other Plone community members did lots of additional tweaking as the site went from Photoshop comp to production.

Can I download the theme for use on my site?

Short answer: no. 

Long answer: While all of the code behind the theme is freely available, it's not currently packaged up as an easily installable standard Plone theme. 

Why isn't new plone.org theme available standard Plone theme product?

The new plone.org theme is (among other things), one of our first demanding high-volume tests of collective.xdv, a revolutionary new approach to Plone theming that will likely ship as part of Plone 4. It provides a vastly simpler approach to theming Plone (and other web apps!), but it's still "in the lab" and is not yet an officially-supported approach to theming.  All in good time!