-So you want to set up your own wiki using ikiwiki? This turorial will walk
-you through setting up a wiki that is stored in [[Subversion]] and that has
-optional support for commits from the web.
+This tutorial will walk you through setting up a wiki with ikiwiki.
-1. [[Install]] ikiwiki.
+[[!toc ]]
- apt-get install ikiwiki # soon
+## Install ikiwiki
- Ikiwiki requires [[MarkDown]] be installed, and also uses the following
- perl modules: `CGI::Session` `CGI::FormBuilder` `HTML::Template`
+If you're using Debian or Ubuntu, ikiwiki is an `apt-get install ikiwiki` away.
+If you're not, see the [[download]] and [[install]] pages.
-2. Create the subversion repository for your wiki.
+## Create your wiki
- svnadmin create /svn/wikirepo
- svn mkdir file:///svn/wikirepo/trunk -m create
+All it takes to create a fully functional wiki using ikiwiki is running
+one command.
+[[!template id=note text="""
+For more control, advanced users may prefer to set up a wiki
+[[by_hand|byhand]].
+"""]]
-3. Check out the repository to make the working copy that ikiwiki will use.
+ % ikiwiki -setup /etc/ikiwiki/auto.setup
- svn co file:///svn/wikirepo/trunk ~/wikiwc
+Or, set up a blog with ikiwiki, run this command instead.
-4. Create some files and add them into subversion.
+ % ikiwiki -setup /etc/ikiwiki/auto-blog.setup
- echo "Welcome to my empty wiki." > ~/wikiwc/index.mdwn
- echo "Feel free to edit this page" > ~/wikiwc/sandbox.mdwn
- svn add ~/wikiwc/*.mdwn
- svn commit ~/wikiwc -m add
+Either way, it will ask you a couple of questions.
-5. Build your wiki for the first time.
+ What will the wiki be named? foo
+ What revision control system to use? git
+ What wiki user (or openid) will be admin? joey
+ Choose a password:
- ikiwiki --verbose ~/wikiwc/ /usr/lib/ikiwiki/templates ~/public_html/wiki/ --url=http://host/~you/wiki/
+Then, wait for it to tell you an url for your new site..
- Replace the url with the right url to your wiki. You should now
- be able to visit the url and see your page that you created earlier.
+ Successfully set up foo:
+ url: http://example.com/~joey/foo
+ srcdir: ~/foo
+ destdir: ~/public_html/foo
+ repository: ~/foo.git
+ To modify settings, edit ~/foo.setup and then run:
+ ikiwiki -setup ~/foo.setup
-6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 as desired, editing or adding pages and rebuilding
- the wiki. You can play around with other ikiwiki parameters such as
- --wikiname too. Get conformatble with its command line.
+Done!
-7. Set up a Subversion [[post-commit]] hook to automatically rebuild your
- wiki when you commit to it.
+## Using the web interface
- ikiwiki ~/wikiwc/ ~/public_html/wiki/ \
- --url=http://host/~you/wiki/ --wrapper
- mv ikiwiki-wrap /svn/wikirepo/hooks/post-commit
+Now you can go to the url it told you, and edit pages in your new wiki
+using the web interface.
-8. Set up a [[CGI]] to allow editing the wiki from the web.
+(If the web interface doesn't seem to allow editing or login, you may
+need to configure [[configure_the_web_server|tips/dot_cgi]].)
- ikiwiki ~/wikiwc/ ~/public_html/wiki/ \
- --url=http://host/~you/wiki/ --wrapper --cgi
- chmod 6755 ikiwiki-wrap
- mv wrapper ~/public_html/wiki/ikiwki.cgi
+## Checkout and edit wiki source
- Note that this assumes that your web server will run CGI scripts from
- your public_html directory. You might need to put it somewhere else
- depending on your web server configuration.
+Part of the fun of using ikiwiki is not being limited to using the
+web for editing pages, and instead using your favorite text editor and
+[[Revision_Control_System|rcs]].
-9. Add links to the CGI to all the pages in your wiki, and update your
- post-commit hook to add such links when updating the wiki in the
- future. Note the use of the [[WrapperParamsTrick]].
+To do this, you need to check out a copy of the source to your wiki.
+(You should avoid making changes directly to the `srcdir`, as that
+checkout is reserved for use by ikiwiki itself.)
- ikiwiki $(/svn/wikirepo/hooks/post-commit --params) \
- --cgiurl=http://host/~you/wiki/ikiwiki.cgi --wrapper
- mv ikiwiki-wrap /svn/wikirepo/hooks/post-commit
- ikiwiki $(/svn/wikirepo/hooks/post-commit --params) --rebuild
+Depending on which [[Revision_Control_System|rcs]] you chose to use,
+you can run one of these commands to check out your own copy of your wiki's
+source. (Remember to replace "foo" with the real directory name.)
- Be sure to change the cgiurl to the actual url to the wiki.cgi you
- installed in step 9.
+ git clone foo.git foo.src
+ svn checkout file://`pwd`/foo.svn/trunk foo.src
+ cvs -d `pwd`/foo get -P ikiwiki
+ bzr clone foo foo.src
+ hg clone foo foo.src
+ # TODO monotone, tla
-10. Add [[PageHistory]] links to the top of pages. This requires you to have setup [[ViewCVS]] or something similar to access your [[Subversion]] repository. The --historyurl parameter makes ikiwiki add the links, and in that url, "[[]]" is replaced with the name of the file to view. So repeat step 9 to rebuild the wiki post commit wrapper and wiki, adding a historyurl something like this one:
+Now to edit pages by hand, go into the directory you checked out (ie,
+"foo.src"), and fire up your text editor to edit `index.mdwn` or whatever
+other page you want to edit. If you chose to set up a blog, there is even a
+sample first post in `posts/first_post.mdwn` that you can edit.
- --historyurl='http://svn.host/trunk/doc/[[]]?root=wiki'
+Once you've edited a page, use your revision control system to commit
+the changes. For distributed revision control systems, don't forget to push
+your commit.
-11. Enjoy your new wiki!
+Once the commit reaches the repository, ikiwiki will notice it, and
+automatically update the wiki with your changes.
+
+## Customizing the wiki
+
+There are lots of things you can configure to customize your wiki.
+These range from changing the wiki's name, to enabling [[plugins]],
+to banning users and locking pages.
+
+If you log in as the admin user you configured earlier, and go to
+your Preferences page, you can click on "Wiki Setup" to customize many
+wiki settings and plugins.
+
+Some settings cannot be configured on the web, for security reasons or
+because misconfiguring them could break the wiki. To change these settings,
+you can manually edit the setup file, which is named something like
+"foo.setup". The file lists all available configuration settings
+and gives a brief description of each.
+
+After making changes to this file, you need to tell ikiwiki to use it:
+
+ % ikiwiki -setup foo.setup
+
+## Customizing file locations
+
+As a wiki compiler, ikiwiki builds a wiki from files in a source directory,
+and outputs the files to a destination directory. The source directory is
+a working copy checked out from the version control system repository.
+
+When you used `auto.setup`, ikiwiki put the source directory, destination
+directory, and repository in your home directory, and told you the location
+of each. Those locations were chosen to work without customization, but you
+might want to move them to different directories.
+
+First, move the destination directory and repository around.
+
+ % mv public_html/foo /srv/web/foo.com
+ % mv foo.git /srv/git/foo.git
+
+If you moved the repository to a new location, checkouts pointing at the
+old location won't work, and the easiest way to deal with this is to delete
+them and re-checkout from the new repository location.
+
+ % rm -rf foo
+ % git clone /src/git/foo.git
+
+Finally, edit the setup file. Modify the settings for `srcdir`, `destdir`,
+`url`, `cgiurl`, `cgi_wrapper`, `git_wrapper`, etc to reflect where
+you moved things. Remember to run `ikiwiki -setup` after editing the
+setup file.
+
+## Enjoy your new wiki!
+
+Add yourself to [[IkiWikiUsers]]. And check out
+the [[tips]] to find out how to get more out of ikiwiki.