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Dreamweaver + Zope SSL HowTo
Created by .
Last modified on 2003/08/05.
The bad news
There is no shortage of "modern" wysiwyg Web authoring tools such
as Dreamweaver, GoLive, HomeSite and Namo. Several of these tools support WebDAV
as well as ftp, but none of them support secure protocols such as SSL.
(Well, one now does - HomeSite 5 supports ftp over SSL but this approach seems
to be a bit of a minority sport.)
For larger organisations moving towards single sign-on (or at least single
identity with password synchronisation) the absence of a secure mechanism for
the transmission of passwords becomes a major issue. Remember that, because
of the stateless nature of the Web, any authentication credentials are passed
across the network for every page you visit - this provides repeated
opportunities for passwords to be sniffed.
The good news
The issue has been raised in the Macromedia
Online Forums but as yet there has been no response from the vendor. My
hunch is that a year from now (this was written in March 2002) SSL support will
be the norm.
Until then a workaround is required and this HowTo describes one approach using
a third-party WebDAV client (such as TeamDrive
or WebDrive) which supports SSL. In a
perfect world you should be able use Microsoft's WebFolders - whilst these work
over SSL they seem broken in various ways which prevents their use by Dreamweaver
et al. with Zope as the back-end server. (I expect WebFolders work swimmingly
with IIS and FrontPage Extensions but, hey, if you want secure computing then
that's not going to be your point of departure, is it?)
The recipe
- Set up ZServerSSL as described here
and here. (Ioan's HowTo
might look a bit daunting but if you want a quick fix just go to the end of
his document and follow the bit commencing "If you want to install SSL
on Zope 2.4.x, try this quick and dirty installation".) You should use
Zope 2.4.3 - ZServerSSL is not yet available for Zope 2.5.x.
[I'm sure you can front things with Apache but I haven't yet got my head round
how you secure both the standard http port and the webdav_source_port. Perhaps
someone can me help out in this regard?]
- Install WebDrive or TeamDrive
on your client computer(s). If using WebDrive make sure you use V5.0 (earlier
versions don't support SSL). Make a connection to the secure Zope server using
the webdav_source_port. A drive such as Y: will be magically created on your
machine. As far as I can see drive Y: will then behave like any other Windows
drive - you can create folders, rename files, copy-and-paste (but see the
Gotchas below), etc. Life is very, very good - this is Samba over the wide-area.
- Fire up Dreamweaver. Drag-and-drop files from drive Y: on to a new Untitled
Document window (or navigate to drive Y: via File > Open). Edit away. Save.
Job done - all securely!
Gotchas
Read the next bit because the above recipe almost certainly will not work without
the following tweaks:
- TeamDrive will not work unless you amend the file zserver/medusa/asynchat.py
on your server. On lines 59, 60 you will see:
ac_in_buffer_size = 4096
ac_out_buffer_size = 4096
Increase the buffer sizes, for example:
ac_in_buffer_size = 100000
ac_out_buffer_size = 100000
and things will now work. I'm not sure if WebDrive needs this too - my
installation broke after about a week and my (client) machine started crashing
horribly (BSOD) when WebDrive was in use over SSL. The buffer tweak seems
to have co-incided with the WebDrive over SSL problem going away. I haven't
managed to reproduce this problem on other PCs though.
- You need to replace the default PUT_factory server side if you want things
like Presentation Templates to survive molestation by Dreamweaver (GoLive
is a much better citizen in this regard). Add the following as put_factory.py
to your Extensions folder:
from Products.PythonScripts.PythonScript import PythonScript
from Products.PageTemplates.ZopePageTemplate import ZopePageTemplate
from OFS.DTMLDocument import DTMLDocument
from OFS.Image import Image
from OFS.Image import File
def PUT_factory( self, name, typ, body ):
# Gimme a PageTemplate or a PythonScript, but never DTML!
if typ=='text/x-python' or (body and body[0]=='#'):
ob = PythonScript( name )
elif typ.startswith('text'):
ob = ZopePageTemplate(name, body, content_type='text/html')
elif typ.startswith('image/'):
ob = Image(name, '', body, content_type=typ)
else:
ob = File(name, '', body, content_type=typ)
return ob
Now, from the ZMI, add an External Method specifying:
Id: PUT_factory
Module: put_factory
Method: PUT_factory
The modified PUT_factory will have effect at the folder where you put the
external method object (and anything below it). You may want to place it
in your root folder so that you get the same behaviour wall to wall.
- Whilst you're editing source files on the server it is also an opportunity
to tweak line 40 of PageTemplate.py in lib\python\Products\PageTemplates so
that it becomes:
expand = 0
This will cause new .pt files not to expand ZPT macros by default.
- Any title property set (via the ZMI) for a Presentation Template gets lost
in the "create .tmp file, rename .tmp file, delete .tmp file" dance
that Dreamweaver does on every edit operation. One way round this is
to store such meta data in tags in the <head> bit of your Presentation
Template.
One fix on the disappearing title might be to set it as a meta tag in the
head of your document and then have the PUT_factory find it there (via a regex)
and turn it into a regular Zope property. Another fix is to have a tal:replace
on title that goes off to a Python Script which then sniffs all sorts of places
looking for an appropriate title.
- Copy-and-paste via NT Explorer is tricky for .pt files. If you do it outside the
influence of the modified PUT_factory and the metatype of your .pt object
becomes 'File'. With the modified PUT_factory in effect, WebDrive then handles
NT Explorer copy-and-paste properly.
TeamDrive doesn't handle copy-and-paste correctly even with the modified PUT_factory
in effect - the metatype of your original .pt object still becomes 'File'.
However, the TeamSource developers are aware of the problem and are working
on a fix.
For reasons I don't fathom copy-and-paste using NT Explorer via WebFolders
not only works but also preserves the title property (see Gotcha No. 4).
- Get in the habit of working exclusively via either the ZMI or
TeamDrive/WebDrive. Or, if you are going to switch between these two modes,
make a point of understanding the WebDAV client caching process (and tuning
it as required). You can get in a right old mess if you make changes at the
Zope end (via ZMI) and don't properly refresh any local caches. I know, I've
done it.
- Dreamweaver is extension-challenged. Extensionless objects will only open
in Code View (and you can't switch to the Design Views).
- Think hard (and experiment before trusting your life on it) about the following
experience of Max M with Dreamweaver templates and the Local Folder (see Tip
No. 3 below) - it could only happen with IIS, right?
1) If you use templates in
Dreamweaver you have one page with the site's layout. When you change that
page DW automatically changes all the pages that uses that layout.
So it goes in and opens every page changes it and saves it again. It does
this in Dreamweaver's "local" folder.
2) Apparently IIS does
some kind of locking and caching of files that it has served to browsers.
So if you try to open a file that has recently been served by the IIS it
behaves oddly. I don't remember the exact behaviour - perhaps you cannot
open it or perhaps you cannot save on top of it.
This behaviour, together
with Dreamweaver's templating behaviour, causes you to loose every file
recently opened through IIS if your site is directly in the local folder.
So I learned the hard way to always have a Remote and a Local Folder in
Dreamweaver.
Tips
To make Dreamweaver work still more sweetly with Zope:
- Apply Updater
4.01 (you certainly need this if you want to use the built-in Dreamweaver
WebDAV features - but remember this doesn't work with https URLs - which,
of course, is the motivation behind this HowTo). The updater doesn't work
on the 30-day trial version of Dreamweaver.
- Inside your Dreamweaver installation find the file Configuration/Extentions.txt
and edit it to include:
PT,HTM,HTML, ..... :All Documents
PT:Zope Presentation Templates
HTM,HTML:HTML Documents
Note that ":Zope Presentation
Templates" or "
:Zope Presentation Templates" don't solve the extensionless object
problem (see Gotcha No. 7).
- The Remote Site view in the Site window is now redundant - the Local Folder
view can be set up to show everything on the Remote Site by mapping
the Local Root Folder (in Define Sites) to drive Y: (or whatever) provided
by WebDrive or TeamDrive.
- Dreamweaver may try to create a "_notes" directory on Zope. This
is a big no-no for Zope ("_" is a special namespace). It seems benign
as the errors are not fatal. However, turning off Maintain Design Notes (via
Define Sites > Design Notes > Maintain Design Notes) seems to solve
the problem (though Dreamweaver still seems to want to create a _notes directory
in your the Local Root (w.r.t. Dreamweaver) of your Zope site).
- Dreamweaver Templates, not to be confused with Zope's Presentation Templates,
can peacefully co-exist with the latter. Just Save As Template into drive
Y: (or whatever) and a .dwt file (itself a ZPT!) will be created. You can
then do File > New from Template to create a new ZPT (with protected fields,
for example).
Useful to know
- WebDrive works fine against an ftp server over SSH. Set up an ftp connection
but click Advanced, then the Encrytion tab, then select SSH as your FTP method.
That's it - nothing else - and you've got secure ftp with drag and drop!
- Any Web authoring tool that supports ftp can be made to work securely
using SSH port forwarding or tunneling (providing the server
is also configured to support this). The solution is not as transparent as
WebDrive or TeamDrive but may suit your needs. The following describe the
approach:
Using applications other than Dreamweaver with this recipe
To be added .....
- Notepad ;-)
- FrontPage
- Word97
- Word2000
- WordXP
- HomeSite
- GoLive
- Netscape 4
- Netscape 6
- Namo
Acknowledgements
This HowTo draws on help from:
- Jaroslav Dostal and Max Dunn (TeamStream) - Zserver tuning
- Chris Withers (NIP) - PUT_factory and title property thoughts
- Joel Burton - _notes problem and title property thoughts
- Max M - Dreamweaver Templates + IIS nightmare
Created using Dreamweaver Ultradev V4.01, WebDrive 5.0, Zope
Page Templates and ZServerSSL (and then rendered HTML copy-and-pasted to www.zope.org).
Author: [email protected]
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