[Zope] Problems Executing pdftk from within zope.

Dieter Maurer dieter at handshake.de
Sat Apr 8 14:47:09 EDT 2006


Jerry Westrick wrote at 2006-4-8 00:42 +0200:
>I trying to modify pdf files from within zope.
>I use the following command:
>
>'/usr/bin/pdftk /t/in.pdf attach_files /t/a1.pdf /t/a2.pdf output /t/out.pdf'
>
>When I execute it as root it works...

I do not know what "pdftk" does.
But from your description, it would be really strange when it required
execution as root. If it really does, I would say: do not use it!

>When executed from within zope, 
>(this i've done via external command that executes os.system(...))
>A task is started to executed it, but the task hangs.

Apart from the most recent Python versions, earlier Python versions
had a bug: forked processes from multi-threaded applications (such
as Zope) had all signals blocked. Thus, when a forked application
used signals (e.g. "alarm"), it could hang.
Checking the "sigmask" of the application can tell you whether
this problem still exists with your Python version.


The most recent Python versions in the 2.3 and 2.4 series should have
this problem fixed.


-- 
Dieter


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