Hosting options for PyDS

The Python Desktop Server has lot's of options on hosting your weblog. I try to give short descriptions on what options are available in this story. There are several implications with each of those options, so you may want to read through this stuff before deciding how you actually want to host your stuff. This demonstrates that the Python Desktop Server is much more than just a weblogging tool destined for use in conjunction with community servers - you can set it up as a full fledged CMS for your local webspace.

One nice thing about the Python Desktop Server first: regardless of what way to host your blog you choose, you are allways able to change this decision later. So you can start with a central community server and later change to your own FTP based hosting. You can even move a desktop installation over to a server installation. All you need to do is rerender your whole site in the upstreaming tools index page after the switch.

So what are the options you have? I will start with the most simple desktop installations and go up to the central server installation as the last one.

Default Desktop Installation

This is the most simple way to set up the Python Desktop Server. You just install it the usual way. You choose the default XSS (XMLStorageSystem) upstreaming driver. You register (this can happen directly in the preferences of the Python Desktop Server) with a community server. If you want english comment boxes and other pages on the community server, choose http://pycs.net/RPC2 for your community server RPC url. If you want german messages, use http://muensterland.org/RPC2. If you want japanese messages, use http://lowlife.jp/RPC2. This way you get an installation with a maximum of features, as the combination of the Python Desktop Server and the Python Community Server is what is used for development.

Using other Community Servers

Of course you can use any community server that implements the XMLStorageSystem protocol. This can be the Radio Community Server that is used by Radio Userland. The Radio Community Server doesn't implement all features in the same way as the Python Community Server - for example there are no Access Restrictions (restricted areas in your weblog where you can set up users and passwords for access). Other features like search and maybe trackback might work slightly different. But it should work.

One special Community Server - PHP Community Server

One special community server deserves it's own mentioning: the PHP Storage System is written in PHP and based on a MySQL Database. It implements the XMLStorageSystem API and comments. This allows you to host any XMLStorageSystem based weblog software (like the Python Desktop Server or Radio Userland) on your own webspace, if your provider allows PHP and gives you a MySQL database. Setup is a bit weird, as actually you are installing a multi-user-tool only for yourself, but it's quite cool that way. You have much of the features of Python Desktop Server, but still use your own server. Features that are missing are trackbacks and AccessRestrictions.

Using FTP to Host Your Weblog

Another way to set up the Python Desktop Server is to don't go the XSS way. You can select other upstreaming drivers. One of them is the FTP upstreaming driver. This allows you to publish your weblog to your own FTP server. You can set up all specialities of your webspace like the base URL of the folder you are upstreaming to, the server, the subfolder to upstream into and user credentials to login. The FTP method is nice if you want to run your installation on the desktop but publish to a standard webspace where you don't have many features available (or don't want to use those features). The Python Desktop Server generates only static HTML in this case. Comments, Trackbacks, AccessRestrictions - all this doesn't work out of the box. You need to use an external comment provider or some CGI of your provider and change your templates accordingly. So this is more work, but gives you totally freedom for your webspace to only use the software you want to use.

Running PyDS on a Central Server

This is the coolest way to run the Python Desktop Server, but is one that requires you to have higher priviledges on a central hosted server. If you have root priviledges, or if you can decide what software is installed on the system, you can install the Python Desktop Server software on a machine with static IP and direct static internet connectivity. Then you select the LFS (LocalFileSystem) upstreaming driver. This driver works much in the same way as the FTP upstreaming driver, but just uses local file copying to upstream data. This way you can start the Python Desktop Server on a user account on the central machine, access it via the remote access features of it to weblog your stuff and publishing is done from the very same machine. Restrictions in functionality are very much like with the FTP upstreaming driver - you are on your own with regard to comments, trackback and access restrictions. But this way you can access your installation from everywhere. With special setup you can blend your Python Desktop Server into your weblog as a special URL subpath.

Other Uses of Central Installation

You can combine the central installation with other upstreaming drivers, of course. So you could run PHP Storage System on the central host somewhere, run the Python Desktop Server on the same machine and publish locally with the XMLStorageSystem upstreaming driver to get comments. You could even install your own Python Community Server to get the full feature set on your machine - even though that might be a bit overkill for personal blogs.

Others ways to make use of the central hosted installation would be to change the tools order in your preferences and push the WikiTool to level 0 (and the weblog tool down to some lower level). This way the WikiTool get's your primary tool and creates the index.html page of your site. The result is that your Python Desktop Server actually becomes a CMS for your static content - write your pages in reStructured Text instead of HTML, use the macros and nuggets features and templates of the Python Desktop Server to do your layout and create your own plugin tools for special database content.

Plans for the Future

One way I think I will make the Python Desktop Server more flexible will be with comment systems and trackback systems with regard to FTP or LFS upstreaming. I plan to create plugins that allow one to use FTP upstreaming or LFS upstreaming and use comments and trackbacks from some community server. This way you would get the best of both worlds: central comment management (with RSS feeds for new comments or trackbacks and stuff like that) and your own webspace. This would remove some load from community servers, too (not that any of the three mentionend community servers has any load problems at all).