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tariqhamid
tariqhamid

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Gemstone Seaside Webserver

#seaside #gemstone #smalltalk #webdev

Gemstone is a multi-user Smalltalk database. Here I show how to load Seaside into Gemstone. Nginx supports a reverse-proxy mechanism for Seaside, as described below.

Download Gemstone
On the page https://gemtalksystems.com/products/gs64/ click on Download

On the download page click on the zip or dmg file

Click on the downloaded file.

I recommend you copy the contents of Gemstone dowload to /opt/gemstone/product

Install Seaside
make the seaside subdirectory your current directory:
cd /opt/gemstone/product/seaside/

Copy the system.conf file, shown below to /opt/gemstone/product/seaside/data/system.conf

# system.conf
#
# This is a larger configuration suitable for a standalone system.
DBF_EXTENT_NAMES = $GEMSTONE_DATADIR/extent0.dbf;
# DBF_SCRATCH_DIR = $GEMSTONE_DATADIR/;
KEYFILE = $GEMSTONE_KEYFILE;
STN_HALT_ON_FATAL_ERR = FALSE;
STN_TRAN_FULL_LOGGING = TRUE;
STN_TRAN_LOG_DIRECTORIES = $GEMSTONE_DATADIR/, $GEMSTONE_DATADIR/;
STN_TRAN_LOG_SIZES = 1000, 1000;

# Increased for GLASS/Seaside loading
# SHR_PAGE_CACHE_SIZE_KB should always be > GEM_TEMPOBJ_CACHE_SIZE
SHR_PAGE_CACHE_SIZE_KB = 2000000;
GEM_TEMPOBJ_CACHE_SIZE = 1000000;

# This is set to ensure that all garbage is collected when
# when an MFC is run. See the discussion in 
#  Issue 136: maintenance vm running only #unregisterExpiredHandlers may hang onto dead objects
#  http://code.google.com/p/glassdb/issues/detail?id=136
GEM_TEMPOBJ_POMGEN_PRUNE_ON_VOTE=90;
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Copy the database extent:
cp /opt/gemstone/product/bin/extent0.seaside.dbf \
/opt/gemstone/product/seaside/data/extent0.dbf

Make the extent writable:

chmod +w /opt/gemstone/product/seaside/data/extent0.dbf

set the environment variables:
source defSeaside

Check that the stone and netldi services are running by typing, gslist -lcv

gslist -lcv
Status        Version    Owner       Pid   Port   Started     Type       Name
-------      --------- --------- -------- ----- ------------ ------      ----
OK           3.7.4.3   trex        17955 50377 Dec 29 15:21 Netldi      gs64ldi
OK           3.7.4.3   trex       17990 54101 Dec 29 15:25 Stone       seaside
OK           3.7.4.3   trex        17991 54099 Dec 29 15:25 cache       seaside~e65467ac4c061631
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edit ~/.topazini

! default initialization for Topaz session
set user DataCurator pass swordfish
! set user SystemUser pass swordfish
!set gemstone gs64stone
!set gemstone gs_3.7.4.3
set gemstone seaside

set gemnetid !#netldi:gs64ldi!gemnetobject

! login
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Lines starting with exclamation marks are comments. Make sure you are logged in as DataCurator and not SystemUser.

DataCurator can see the necessary classes: Gofer, GsDeployer and Metacello, which are used to load Seaside from GitHub.

Run topaz:

topaz -l

Reading initialization file /Users/trex/.topazini
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login to a gem

topaz> login
[29/12/2025 16:37:02.845 GMT]
  gci login: currSession 2  rpc gem processId 19278 socket 4 
successful login
 fileformat is now utf8
sourcestringclass is now Unicode16
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Go to the GitHub Seaside repository:
https://github.com/seasidest/seaside


In the middle of the above page you will see a section for Gemstone:

Paste the following into your topaz session:

run
Gofer new
  package: 'GsUpgrader-Core';
  url: 'http://ss3.gemtalksystems.com/ss/gsUpgrader';
  load.
(Smalltalk at: #GsUpgrader) upgradeGrease.
%
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run
GsDeployer deploy: [
  Metacello new
    baseline: 'Seaside3';
    repository: 'github://SeasideSt/Seaside:master/repository';
    onLock: [:ex | ex honor];
    load ].
%
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run
GsDeployer deploy: [
  Metacello new
    baseline: 'Seaside3';
    repository: 'github://SeasideSt/Seaside:master/repository';
    onLock: [:ex | ex honor];
    load: #('Zinc') ].
%
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Commit the code to ensure that it can be used across further topaz sessions:

run
System commit.
%
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As a test

run
"Test server startup (this should now work)"
WAGemStoneRunSeasideGems startGemServerOn: 9001.
%
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View the Seaside server run on port 9001:

Control-C and quit the topaz session:

topaz 4> run
"Test server startup (this should now work)"
WAGemStoneRunSeasideGems startGemServerOn: 9001.
%

[Sending hard break]
ERROR 6004 , a Break occurred (error 6004), A hard break was received.
topaz 4> quit
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3 Seaside Servers
Ensure line 58 of /opt/gemstone/product/seaside/bin/startSeaside30_Adaptor is commented out:

58c58
<     Breakpoint trappable: true.
---
>     "Breakpoint trappable: true."
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The edited startSeaside30_Adaptor file should look like:

As a precaution first stop the 3 seaside servers on ports 8080, 8081 and 8082

cd /opt/gemstone/product/seaside
./bin/runSeasideGems30 stop Zinc "8080 8081 8082"

Finally run 3 seaside servers:
cd /opt/gemstone/product/seaside
./bin/runSeasideGems30 start Zinc "8080 8081 8082"

You should see 3 Seaside webservers run at

http://localhost:8080

http://localhost:8081

http://localhost:8082

Reverse-Proxy Hosting
To see any of the 3 Seaside servers running on just http://localhost

edit seaside.conf

this is normally located at /etc/nginx/conf.d/seaside.conf for Linux and at /opt/homebrew/etc/nginx/seaside.conf for Mac.

# /opt/homebrew/etc/nginx/seaside.conf        (Mac/Homebrew path)
# or /etc/nginx/conf.d/seaside.conf           (Linux)

#user  nobody;
worker_processes  1;

#error_log  logs/error.log;
#error_log  logs/error.log  notice;
#error_log  logs/error.log  info;

#pid        logs/nginx.pid;

events {
    worker_connections  1024;
}

http {
    include       mime.types;
    default_type  application/octet-stream;

    #log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
    #                  '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
    #                  '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

    #access_log  logs/access.log  main;

    sendfile        on;
    #tcp_nopush     on;

    #keepalive_timeout  0;
    keepalive_timeout  65;

    #gzip  on;

    upstream seaside_backend {
        # nginx will round-robin between the three gems
        server 127.0.0.1:8080 max_fails=3 fail_timeout=30s;
        server 127.0.0.1:8081 max_fails=3 fail_timeout=30s;
        server 127.0.0.1:8082 max_fails=3 fail_timeout=30s;
    }

    server {
        listen 80;
        server_name seaside.example.com;          # <-- your public host

        # --- static files (optional) ------------------------------------------
        # serve everything under /seaside/static/* from disk
        location /seaside/static/ {
            alias /opt/gemstone/product/seaside/web-root/static/;  # adjust path
            expires 1y;
            add_header Cache-Control "public, immutable";
            access_log off;
        }

        # --- dynamic Seaside requests -----------------------------------------
        location / {
            proxy_pass         http://seaside_backend;
            proxy_redirect     off;

            # standard headers Seaside needs to build correct external URLs
            proxy_set_header Host              $host;
            proxy_set_header X-Real-IP         $remote_addr;
            proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For   $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
            proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;

            # timeouts (adjust if your pages are slow)
            proxy_connect_timeout 10s;
            proxy_send_timeout    60s;
            proxy_read_timeout    60s;
        }
    }

    include servers/*;
}
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Check that the above nginx.conf is good and the reload nginx.

sudo nginx -t   # syntax check
sudo nginx -s reload
or
sudo nginx
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Now view any of the 3 websites at http://localhost

References
https://www.monkeysnatchbanana.com/2010/06/24/reverse-proxying-to-seaside-with-nginx/
https://www.monkeysnatchbanana.com/2010/08/18/using-fastcgi-with-nginx-and-seaside/
https://dev.to/tariqhamid/gemstone-seaside-webserver-appendices-386k

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