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plone/cookiecutter-zope-instance

It bakes configuration for Zope 5

cookiecutter-zope-instance is a cookiecutter template to create a full and complex configuration of a Zope WSGI instance.

  • Creates basic file-system structure with zope.conf, zope.ini, site.zcml and initial user.
  • Set Zope's main configuration options.
  • Configure different database backends such as local file-system storage, RelStorage or ZEO.
  • Enable development options.

All non-ancient features of plone.recipe.zope2instance are provided plus new features.

Install latest cookiecutter from GitHub with pip install "cookiecutter".

Prepare a instance.yaml with the parameters needed. A minimal example is (add option as needed):

default_context:
    initial_user_name: 'admin'
    initial_user_password: 'admin'

    zcml_package_includes: my.awesome.addon, my.otheraddon
    db_storage: direct

Run:

cookiecutter -f --no-input --config-file instance.yaml gh:plone/cookiecutter-zope-instance

If you do not want to upgrade your configuration right away, you can still use the old version of the cookiecutter. Just specify the version number with -c like: cookiecutter -c 1.0.1 -f --no-input --config-file instance.yaml gh:plone/cookiecutter-zope-instance Check the releases for the latest 1-series version number.

  • In 1.x variables debug_mode and verbose_security expected a string value "True" or "False". Since 2.x they expect a boolean value true or false as any other boolean settings variable.
  • In 1.x the variable zcml was a dict with keys for the different settings. Since 2.x, for each setting there is a variable prefixed with zcml_. This unifies the usage of the variables. If a list of values were given in 1.x, now a comma separated string is expected. See section ZCML below.
target

The target directory name of the cookiecutter generated configuration. This is also the so called INSTANCEHOME.

Attention, this is relative to current directory or to cookiecutter command line options if given (-o PATH or --output-dir PATH).

Default: instance

location_clienthome

Zope's clienthome directory is were by default all writable files are written. Such as database with blobs, logs, PID-file, ... This is the only place, where the user of the WSGI process needs write access. Traditionally this is the var directory of the instancehome.

Default: {{ cookiecutter.target }}/var

location_log

Base directory for all log files.

Default: {{ cookiecutter.location_clienthome }}/log

wsgi_listen

IP address or hostname with port the HTTP server binds to.

Default: localhost:8080

wsgi_fast_listen

Like wsgi_listen, but uses waitress_fastlisten. Needs latter package to be installed (add it to requirements.txt).

Default: empty string. Switched off.

wsgi_threads

Specify the number of worker threads used to service requests.

Default: 4 (since this is the waitress default)

wsgi_max_request_body_size

Specify the maximum request body size in bytes.

Default: 1073741824 (since this is the waitress default)

wsgi_clear_untrusted_proxy_headers

This tells Waitress (WSGI server) to remove any untrusted proxy headers ("Forwarded", "X-Forwarded-For", "X-Forwarded-By", "X-Forwarded-Host", "X-Forwarded-Port", "X-Forwarded-Proto") not explicitly allowed by trusted_proxy_headers.

Allowed values boolean: true, false

Default: false

TODO: support all of https://docs.pylonsproject.org/projects/waitress/en/latest/arguments.html

environment

The environment set in zope.conf.

Values: It is a dictionary with key/value pairs.

Default:

{
    "zope_i18n_compile_mo_files": "true",
    "CHAMELEON_CACHE": "{{ cookiecutter.location_clienthome }}/cache"
}

Attention, due to a bug in cookiecutter 2.2.0 to 2.5.0 the value of the environment variable is not added or updated but replaced!

environment_paths
Since all relative paths are turned into absolute ones, we need to tell the cookiecutter which environment variables are paths. By default it is set to ["CHAMELEON_CACHE"] (when customizing, always include it)
dos_protection_available

In Zope 5.8.4 and later, DOS protection is available. For older versions of Zope set this to false.

Allowed values boolean: true, false.

Default: true

dos_protection_form_memory_limit

The maximum size for each part in a multipart post request, for the complete body in an urlencoded post request and for the complete request body when accessed as bytes (rather than a file).

default: "1MB",

dos_protection_form_disk_limit

The maximum size of a POST request body.

default: "1GB",

dos_protection_form_memfile_limit

The value of form variables of type file with larger size are stored on disk rather than in memory.

default: "4KB",

initial_user_name

Creates an initial user with the given name an "Manager" role (full web access).

Default: admin

initial_user_password

Creates an initial password for the initial user. If empty, a password will be generated and printed after the cookiecutter generation process run.

Default: empty string

zcml_package_metas

A string with comma separated values of meta.zcml files from packages to include.

Examples: "my.fancypackage" or "myns.mypackage, collective.example"

Default: empty string

zcml_package_includes

A string with comma separated configure.zcml files from packages to include.

Examples: "my.fancypackage" or "myns.mypackage, collective.example"

Default: empty string

zcml_package_overrides

A string with comma separated overrides.zcml files from packages to include.

Examples: "my.fancypackage" or "myns.mypackage, collective.example"

Default: empty string

zcml_include_file_location

A (relative to TARGET/etc) path to a ZCML file to include.

Default: unused, empty string.

zcml_overrides_file_location

A (relative to TARGET/etc) path to an overrides ZCML file to include.

Default: unused, empty string.

zcml_resources_directory_location

A relative to TARGET/etc) path to an Plone resource directory to include. Please refer to plone.resource for more details and setup instructions.

Default: unused, empty string.

zcml_locales_directory_location

Specify a (relative to TARGET/etc) locales directory.

Default: unused, empty string

This registers a locales directory with extra or different translations. Given you want to override a few translations from the plone domain in the English language. Then add a en/LC_MESSAGES/plone.po file in this directory, with standard headers at the top, followed by something like this:

#. Default: "You are here:"
msgid "you_are_here"
msgstr "You are very welcome here:"

Translations for other message ids are not affected and will continue to work.

Zope/Plone offers different ZODB storage backends for different environments and needs:

  • For development a simple local file based direct storage is all you need (aka filestorage).
  • As soon as you want multiple application processes of Zope/Plone (horizontal scaling) you need to run a separate database server process and connect to it.
    • We recommend to use a PostgreSQL database using the RelStorage implementation for ZODB with psycopg2 driver as database server in production environments. RelStorage supports very well MySQL (and derivatives), Oracle and SQLite 3 as database servers.
    • Zope and ZODB comes with ZEO (Zope Enterprise Objects). This more lightweight storage server is supported here too. It is widely used in production environment.

Blobs (binary large objects, like files and images) are handled in a special way:

In direct storage blob files are stored in a dedicated directory in filesystem.

With a RelStorage or ZEO there are two options:

  1. Blobs stored within the primary database server as data. The application client needs a local (non-shared) cache directory for the blobs. This is recommended in general for RelStorage
  2. Blobs stored in a separate dedicated filesystem directory. This directory is in shared usage by all application processes. If application processes are spread over many servers, a network filesystem such as NFS or similar must be used. This is recommend for ZEO.

Core database options:

TODO check here https://zodb.org/en/latest/reference/zodb.html#database-text-configuration

db_storage

Which storage type to be configured.

Allowed values: direct, relstorage, zeo

Default: direct

db_cache_size

Set the ZODB cache target maximum number of non-ghost objects, i.e. the number of objects which the ZODB cache will try to hold in RAM per connection. The actual size depends on the data. For each connection in the connection pool of the application process one cache is created. In other words one cache is created for each active parallel running thread. If in doubt do not touch. On the other hand it is a powerful setting to tune your application.

Default: 30000.

db_cache_size_bytes

Set the ZODB cache target total memory usage of non-ghost objects in each connection object cache. This setting sets an additional limit on top of db_cache_size. The cache is kept below the value of either db_cache_size or db_cache_size_bytes, whatever limit was hit first. If value is 0 the byte size check is switched off and only db_cache_size is taken into account.

Allowed values: byte-size (integer format with postfix KB, MB, GB)

Default: unset, empty string, database default of 0 is active.

db_large_record_size

When object records are saved that are larger than this, a warning is issued, suggesting that blobs should be used instead.

Allowed values: byte-size (integer format with postfix KB, MB, GB)

Default: unset, empty string, database default of 16MB is active.

db_pool_size

The expected maximum number of simultaneously open connections. There is no hard limit (as many connections as are requested will be opened, until system resources are exhausted). Exceeding pool-size connections causes a warning message to be logged, and exceeding twice pool-size connections causes a critical message to be logged.

Allowed values: integer

Default: unset, empty string, database default of 7 is active.

The blob settings are valid for all storages.

db_blob_mode

Set if blobs are stored shared within all clients or are they stored on the storage backend and the client only operates as temporary cache. For direct storage only shared applies (operates like shared with one single client). Attention: Do not forget to set this to cache if you use RelStorage!

Allowed values: shared, cache

Default: shared

db_blob_location

The name of the directory where the ZODB blob data or cache (depends on db_blob_mode) will be stored.

Default: {{ cookiecutter.location_clienthome }}/blobs.

db_blob_cache_size

Set the maximum size of the blob cache, in bytes. With many blobs and enough disk space on the client hardware this should be increased. If not set, then the cache size isn't checked and the blob directory will grow without bound. Only valid for db_blob_mode cache.

Default: 6312427520 (5GB).

db_blob_cache_size_check

Set the ZEO check size as percent of blobs_cache_size (for example, 10 for 10%). The ZEO cache size will be checked when this many bytes have been loaded into the cache. Only valid for db_blob_mode cache.

Defaults: 10 (10% of the blob cache size).

If you have only one application process, it can open a direct filestorage database files directly without running a database server process. For details read the Zope configuration reference

db_filestorage_location

The filename where the ZODB data file will be stored. Note: Side by side with the given file other Data.fs.* files (like locks and indexes) are created.

Defaults: {{ cookiecutter.location_clienthome }}/filestorage/Data.fs.

db_filestorage_pack_keep_old

If switched on, a copy of the database before packing is kept in a .old file.

Allowed values boolean: true, false.

Default: true.

db_filestorage_quota

Maximum allowed size of the storage file. Operations which would cause the size of the storage to exceed the quota will result in a ZODB.FileStorage.FileStorageQuotaError being raised.

Allowed values: byte-size (integer format with postfix KB,MB,GB)

Default: unset, empty string

db_filestorage_packer

The dotted name (dotted module name and object name) of a packer object. This is used to provide an alternative pack implementation.

Allowed values: dotted-name (string)

Default: unset, empty string

db_filestorage_pack_gc

If switched off, then no garbage collection will be performed when packing. This can make packing go much faster and can avoid problems when objects are referenced only from other databases.

Allowed values boolean: true, false.

Default: true.

RelStorage is a storage implementation for ZODB that stores pickles in a relational database (RDBMS).

Note: Please see Database and Blobs Settings , as you will have to set db_blob_mode to cache. Usually you will also have to set up the correct DSN for your database.

db_relstorage

Set the database server to be used.

Allowed values: postgresql, mysql, oracle, sqlite3

Default: postgresql

db_relstorage_keep_history

If this option is switched on, the adapter will create and use a history-preserving database schema (like FileStorage or ZEO). A history-preserving schema supports ZODB-level undo, but also grows more quickly and requires extensive packing on a regular basis.

If this option is switched off, the adapter will create and use a history-free database schema. Undo will not be supported, but the database will not grow as quickly. The database will still require regular garbage collection (which is accessible through the database pack mechanism.)

Allowed values boolean: true, false.

Default: true.

db_relstorage_read_only

If switched on, only reads may be executed against the storage.

Allowed values boolean: true, false.

Default: false.

db_relstorage_create_schema

Normally, RelStorage will create or update the database schema on start-up. Switch it off if you need to connect to a RelStorage database without automatic creation or updates.

Allowed values boolean: true, false.

Default: true.

db_relstorage_commit_lock_timeout

During commit, RelStorage acquires a database-wide lock. This option specifies how long to wait for the lock before failing the attempt to commit. Consult and understand the RelStorage documentation before using this setting.

Default: unset, empty string, RelStorage default of 30 seconds is active.

RelStorage provides advanced blob caching options. For details about caching read RelStorage: Blobs.

db_relstorage_blob_cache_size_check_external

For details read original RelStorage documentation.

Allowed values boolean: true, false.

Default: false.

db_relstorage_blob_chunk_size

For details read original RelStorage documentation.

Default: unset, empty string, RelStorage default of 1048576 (1 megabyte) is active. This option allows suffixes such as “mb” or “gb”.

RelStorage provides advanced RAM and persistent caching options. For details about caching read RelStorage: Database Caching. The descriptions below are copied mainly from there (consult the original source, it may have changed!).

db_relstorage_cache_local_mb

Configures the approximate maximum amount of memory the cache should consume, in megabytes. Set to 0 to disable the in-memory cache (this is not recommended).

Default: unset, empty string, RelStorage default of 10 is active.

db_relstorage_cache_local_object_max

Configures the maximum size of an object’s pickle (in bytes) that can qualify for the local cache. The size is measured after compression. Larger objects can still qualify for the remote cache.

Default: unset, empty string, RelStorage default of 16384 (1 << 14) bytes is active.

db_relstorage_cache_local_compression

Configures compression within the local cache. This option names a Python module that provides two functions, "compress()" and "decompress()". Supported values include zlib, bz2, and none (no compression). If you use the compressing storage wrapper "zc.zlibstorage", this option automatically does nothing. With other compressing storage wrappers this should be set to none.

Default: unset, empty string, RelStorage default of none is active (to avoid copying data more than necessary).

db_relstorage_cache_local_dir
The path to a directory where the local cache will be saved when the database is closed. On startup, RelStorage will look in this directory for cache files to load into memory. The cache files must be located on a local (not network) filesystem. Consult and understand the Database Caching manual before using this setting.
db_relstorage_cache_prefix

The prefix used as part of persistent cache file names. All clients using a database should use the same cache-prefix.

Default: unset, empty string, RelStorage default of the database name is active.

RelStorage has extra parameters for blobs.

If your database runs replicated, RelStorage supports handling of replications. For details about replication options read RelStorage: Replication.

db_relstorage_replica_conf

For details read original RelStorage documentation.

Default: unset, empty string

db_relstorage_ro_replica_conf

For details read original RelStorage documentation.

Default: unset, empty string

db_relstorage_replica_timeout

For details read original RelStorage documentation.

Default: unset, empty string

db_relstorage_replica_revert_when_stale

For details read original RelStorage documentation.

Default: unset, empty string

RelStorage provides helper scripts for packing (zodbpack) and import/export from filestorage (zodbconvert).

The configuration for the scripts is generated as separate file:

The file relstorage-pack.conf for the command line utility zobdpack is always generated for all RelStorage configurations. For usage information read Packing Or Reference Checking A ZODB Storage: zodbpack.

The files - relstorage-export.conf is generated if the two db_relstorage_export_* settings are given, and - relstorage-import.conf is generated if the two db_relstorage_import_* settings are given.

Both are for the command line utility zobdconvert. For usage information read Copying Data Between ZODB Storages: zodbconvert

At the moment only the filestorage with blobs is supported. In future there may be more options, like converting from/to a ZEO-server or another RelStorage/Database. Latter would be useful to upgrade a database or convert MySQL to PostgreSQL or vice versa.

db_relstorage_import_filestorage_location

The filename of the filestorage to import from.

Default: unset, empty string

db_relstorage_import_blobs_location

The directory of the blob storage to import from.

Default: unset, empty string

db_relstorage_export_filestorage_location

The filename of the filestorage to export to.

Default: unset, empty string

db_relstorage_export_blobs_location

The directory of the blob storage to export to.

Default: unset, empty string

For details about the options read: RelStorage: PostgreSQL adapter options

db_relstorage_postgresql_driver:

Driver to use.

Allowed values: psycopg2, psycopg2 gevent, psycopg2cffi, pg8000.

Default: psycopg2

db_relstorage_postgresql_dsn

Specifies the data source name for connecting to PostgreSQL. A PostgreSQL DSN is a list of parameters separated with whitespace. A typical DSN looks like: dbname='plone' user='username' host='localhost' password='secret'

Default: unset, empty string

For details about the options read: RelStorage: MySQL adapter options

db_relstorage_mysql_driver:

Driver to use.

Allowed values: MySQLdb, gevent MySQLdb, PyMySQL, C MySQL Connector/Python.

Default: psycopg2

db_relstorage_mysql_parameters:

A dictionary with all MySQL parameters. This depends on the driver.

Example:

{
    ...
    "db_relstorage_mysql_parameters": {
        "host": "localhost",
        "user": "plone",
        "passwd": "secret",
        "db": "plone"
    },
    ...
}

For details about the options read: RelStorage: Oracle adapter options

db_relstorage_oracle_user

The Oracle account name.

Default: unset, empty string

db_relstorage_oracle_password

The Oracle account password.

Default: unset, empty string

db_relstorage_oracle_dsn

The Oracle data source name. The Oracle client library will normally expect to find the DSN in /etc/oratab

Default: unset, empty string

db_relstorage_commit_lock_id

During commit, RelStorage acquires a database-wide lock. This option specifies the lock ID. This option currently applies only to the Oracle adapter, but is documented under the global settings.

Default: unset, empty string

For details about the options read: RelStorage: SQLite adapter options

db_relstorage_sqlite3_driver

Allowed values: sqlite3, gevent sqlite3

Default: sqlite3

db_relstorage_sqlite3_data_dir

The path to a directory to hold the data. Choosing a dedicated directory is strongly recommended. A network filesystem is generally not recommended.

Default: {{ cookiecutter.location_clienthome }}/sqlite3/

db_relstorage_sqlite3_gevent_yield_interval

Only used if the driver is gevent sqlite

Default: unset, empty string - RelStorage has an internal default of 100.

db_relstorage_sqlite3_pragma

For advanced tuning, nearly the entire set of SQLite PRAGMAs are available.

Default: unset, empty dictionary.

ZEO is a mature client-server storage created for ZODB for sharing a single storage among many clients.

All options can be found in the Zope Configuration Reference under "<zeoclient> (ZODB.config.ZEOClient)""

Main settings:

db_zeo_server

Set the server address of the ZEO server. You can set more than one address (white space delimited). Alternative addresses will be used if the primary address is down.

Default: localhost:8100.

db_zeo_name

Set the storage name of the ZEO storage.

Default: 1.

Caching settings

db_cache_size and db_cache_size_bytes is taken into account. Additional persistent caching is possible.

TODO: figure out what cache-size in ZEO client means.

db_zeo_client

Enables persistent cache files. Set the persistent cache name that is used to construct the cache filenames. This enables the ZEO cache to persist across application restarts.

Persistent cache files are disabled by default. If disabled, the client creates a temporary cache that will only be used by the current object.

The string passed here is used to construct the cache filenames.

Allowed values: string.

Default: unset.

db_zeo_var

The directory where persistent cache files are stored. By default cache files, if they are persistent, are stored in the current directory. Used in the ZEO storage snippets to configure the ZEO var folder, which is used to store persistent ZEO client cache files.

Default: unset, empty string, the system temporary folder is used.

db_zeo_cache_size

Set the size of the file based ZEO client cache. The ZEO cache is a disk based cache shared between application threads. It is stored either in temporary files or, in case you activate persistent cache files with the option client (see below), in the folder designated by the db_zeo_var option.

Default: 128MB.

ZEO supports authentication. You need to activate ZEO authentication on the server side as well, for this to work. Without this anyone that can connect to the database servers socket can read and write arbitrary data.

db_zeo_username

Enable ZEO authentication and use the given username when accessing the ZEO server. It is obligatory to also specify a zeo-password.

Default: unset, empty string, no authentication.

db_zeo_password

Password to use when connecting to a ZEO server with authentication enabled.

Default: unset, empty string.

db_zeo_realm

Authentication realm to use when authentication with a ZEO server.

Default: ZEO.

ZEO has some advance options. If in doubt better do not touch them.

db_zeo_read_only_fallback

A flag indicating whether a read-only remote storage should be acceptable as a fallback when no writable storages are available.

Allowed values: true, false.

Default: false

db_zeo_read_only

Set zeo client as read only.

Allowed values: true, false.

Default: false

db_zeo_drop_cache_rather_verify

Indicates that the cache should be dropped rather than verified when the verification optimization is not available (e.g. when the ZEO server restarted).

Allowed values boolean: true, false.

Default: false.

Plone offers `CORS <https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/CORS`_ handling with the plone.rest package. CORS configuration is needed, if you want to access the Plone REST API from a different domain than the one Plone is running on.

cors_enabled

Enable CORS support.

Allowed values: true, false.

Default: false

cors_allow_credentials

Indicates whether the resource supports user credentials in the request.

Allowed values: true, false.

Default: true

cors_allow_headers

A comma separated list of request headers allowed to be sent by the client.

Default: Accept,Authorization,Content-Type

cors_allow_methods

A comma separated list of HTTP method names that are allowed by this CORS policy.

Default: DELETE,GET,OPTIONS,PATCH,POST,PUT

cors_allow_origin

Origins that are allowed access to the resource. Either a comma separated list of origins, e.g. https://example.com,https://otherexample.com, or * for all.

Default: http://localhost:3000,http://127.0.0.1:3000

cors_expose_headers

A comma separated list of response headers clients can access.

Default: Content-Length

cors_max_age

Indicates how long the results of a preflight request can be cached in seconds.

Default: 3600

debug_mode

Switches debug mode on or off.

Allowed values boolean: true, false.

Default: false

verbose_security

Switches verbose security on (and switch to the Python security implementation).

Allowed values boolean: true, false.

Default: false

profile_repoze

Enable profiling with `repoze.profile <>`_. Ensure to execute pip install repoze.profile before switching this on.

Allowed values boolean: true, false.

Defaults to false.

profile_repoze_log_filename

Filename of the raw profile data. This file contains the raw profile data for further analysis.

Default to location_log/repoze_profile.raw.log".

profile_repoze_cachegrind_filename

If the package pyprof2calltree is installed, another file is written. It is meant for consumption with any cachegrind compatible application.

Defaults to location_log/repoze_cachegrind.out.bar.

profile_repoze_discard_first_request

See repoze.profile docs for details.

Allowed values boolean: true, false.

Defaults to true.

profile_repoze_path

See repoze.profile docs for details. The path for through the web access to the last profiled request.

Defaults to /__profile__.

profile_repoze_flush_at_shutdown

Allowed values boolean: true, false.

Defaults to true.

profile_repoze_unwind

See repoze.profile docs for details.

Allowed values boolean: true, false.

Defaults to false.

Helper scripts for copy paste usage in projects. Located in the helper directory of cookiecutter-zope-instance.

Creates configuration from from prefixed environment variables. This is useful for containerized deployments.

Precondition: Python 3 with pyyaml installed.

It takes a YAML configuration file as input and outputs a YAML configuration file. Any environment variable with a given prefix (INSTANCE_ by default) is transformed into a configuration variable. The prefix is stripped and the rest of the environment variable name either add or replaces the configuration variable name.

Give we have a configuration file instance.yaml (like for development):

default_context:
    wsgi_fast_listen: 0.0.0.0:8080
    initial_user_name: admin
    initial_user_password: admin
    debug_mode: true
    verbose_security: true
    zcml_package_includes: my.fancy.package
    db_storage: direct

Then we set a bunch of environment variables for production:

export INSTANCE_wsgi_fast_listen=
export INSTANCE_wsgi_listen=127.0.0.1:8080
export INSTANCE_initial_user_password=
export INSTANCE_debug_mode=false
export INSTANCE_verbose_security=false
export INSTANCE_db_storage=relstorage
export INSTANCE_db_blob_mode=cache
export INSTANCE_db_relstorage_keep_history=false
export INSTANCE_db_relstorage=postgresql
export INSTANCE_db_relstorage_postgresql_dsn="host='db' dbname='plone' user='plone' password='verysecret'"
export INSTANCE_db_cache_size=50000
export INSTANCE_db_cache_size_bytes=1500MB

And after calling the script transform_from_environment.py in the directory of the configuration file, all prefixed environment variables are transformed into a new configuration file instance-from-environment.yaml:

default_context:
    db_blob_mode: cache
    db_cache_size: '50000'
    db_cache_size_bytes: 1500MB
    db_relstorage: postgresql
    db_relstorage_keep_history: false
    db_relstorage_postgresql_dsn: host='db' dbname='plone' user='plone' password='verysecret'
    db_storage: relstorage
    debug_mode: false
    initial_user_name: admin
    initial_user_password: ''
    verbose_security: false
    wsgi_fast_listen: ''
    wsgi_listen: 127.0.0.1:8080
    zcml_package_includes: my.fancy.package

As special case is, if we want the value to represent a dict/mapping. The helper script supports this by using a "_DICT_ as separator. The environment variables

export INSTANCE_a_DICT_b="value b"
export INSTANCE_a_DICT_c="value c"

will be transformed into

default_context:
   a:
        b: value b
        c: value c

This works recursive and updates existing values in the configuration file.

It is useful to modify the environment settings in the configuration file, i.e. like so to reduce the loaded languages to English and German:

export INSTANCE_environment_DICT_PTS_LANGUAGES="de en"
export INSTANCE_environment_DICT_zope_i18n_allowed_languages=="de en"
Problem
We no longer want to use buildout and need a replacement for the old feature rich buildout recipe plone.recipe.zope2instance to configure zope. The old recipe uses python string templates and is not very intuitive to write and maintain.
Idea
cookiecutter is a widespread utility to create text-based code and configuration file-system structures. Let's utilize it's power and wrap it with a thin package to simplify it's usage and add minor features needed for out use case.

to plone.recipe.zope2instance

variable names
They changed. "Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!" (import this)
Sentry
It was possible to configure Sentry. Now use collective.sentry - much better.
The ctl.py
Move now to use mxmake, which already has support for this cookiecutter

Idea and initial implementation by Jens Klein (Klein & Partner KG of BlueDynamics Alliance). Then donated to the Plone Foundation. See CHANGES.rst and/or https://github.com/plone/cookiecutter-zope-instance/graphs/contributors for all contributors.