-So you want to set up your own wiki using ikiwiki? This tutorial will walk
-you through setting up a wiki that is stored in [[Subversion]] or [[Git]],
-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. See [[download]] for where to get it.
+1. [[Download]] and [[install]] ikiwiki.
-2. Create the master rcs repository for your wiki.
+2. Decide where your wiki's files will go.
- # Subversion
- svnadmin create /svn/wikirepo
- svn mkdir file:///svn/wikirepo/trunk -m create
-
- # Git
- mkdir /git/wikirepo
- cd /git/wikirepo
- git init-db
+ As a wiki compiler, ikiwiki builds a wiki from files in a source directory,
+ and outputs the files to a destination directory. If you keep your wiki in
+ a version control system, the source directory will contain a working copy
+ checked out from the version control system.
-3. Check out the repository to make the working copy that ikiwiki will use.
+ For the purposes of this tutorial, we'll set shell variables
+ for these locations, and use those variables in the commands that follow.
- # Subversion
- svn co file:///svn/wikirepo/trunk ~/wikiwc
-
- # Git
- git clone /git/wikirepo ~/wikiwc
+ SRCDIR=~/wikiwc
+ DESTDIR=~/public_html/wiki/
+
+ Note that ikiwiki owns the working copy directory; do not perform your own
+ edits in ikiwiki's working copy.
+
+3. Create the beginnings of your wiki.
+
+ This will create a simple main page for the wiki.
+
+ mkdir $SRCDIR
+ cd $SRCDIR
+ $EDITOR index.mdwn
+
+ In the editor, you could start by entering a simple page like
+ [[toggle id=page text="this one"]].
+
+ [[toggleable id=page text="""
+ Welcome to your new wiki.
+ All wikis are supposed to have a [[SandBox]],
+ so this one does too.
+ ----
+ This wiki is powered by [ikiwiki](http://ikiwiki.info).
+ """]]
+
+ See [[HelpOnFormatting]] for details about the markup language.
+
+ Note that several [[standard_wiki_pages|basewiki]] will be added to your
+ wiki, from files in `/usr/share/ikiwiki/basewiki/`, so your wiki will
+ automatically get a [[SandBox]], and some other useful pages.
4. Build your wiki for the first time.
- ikiwiki --verbose ~/wikiwc/ ~/public_html/wiki/ \
- --url=http://host/~you/wiki/
+ ikiwiki --verbose $SRCDIR $DESTDIR --url=http://example.org/~you/wiki/
Replace the url with the real url to your wiki. You should now
be able to visit the url and see your wiki.
-5. Customise your wiki. The files in `/usr/share/ikiwiki/basewiki/` are
- used if you don't have a custom version, so let's start by making a
- custom version of the wiki's index page:
-
- cd ~/wikiwc
- cp /usr/share/ikiwiki/basewiki/index.mdwn .
- $EDITOR index.mdwn
-
- # Subversion
- svn add index.mdwn
- svn commit -m customised index.mdwn
-
- # Git
- git add index.mdwn
- git commit -m customised index.mdwn
- git push origin
-
- You can also add any files you like from scratch of course.
-
-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` and `--rebuild` too. Get comfortable with its command line
- (see [[usage]]).
-
-7. By now you should be getting tired of typing in all the command line
- options each time you change something in your wiki's setup. And it's
- also getting old to have to manualy rebuild the wiki each time you
- change a file. Time to introduce setup files.
+5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 as desired, editing or adding pages and rebuilding
+ the wiki.
+
+ To quickly get started on a common task like blogging with ikiwiki, you
+ can copy in files from the [[examples]]. The examples are located in
+ `doc/examples/` in the ikiwiki source package.
+
+ You can play around with other ikiwiki parameters such as `--wikiname`
+ and `--rebuild` too. Get comfortable with its command line (see
+ [[usage]]).
+
+6. By now you should be getting tired of typing in all the command line
+ options each time you change something in your wiki's setup. Time to
+ introduce setup files.
A sample setup file is [[ikiwiki.setup]]. Download it (or copy it from
- `doc/ikiwiki.setup` in the ikiwiki sources), and edit it.
+ `doc/ikiwiki.setup` in the ikiwiki sources), and edit it. Note that this
+ file should *not* be put in your wiki's directory with the rest of the
+ files. A good place to put it is in a ~/.ikiwiki/ subdirectory.
Most of the options, like `wikiname` in the setup file are the same as
ikiwiki's command line options (documented in [[usage]]. `srcdir` and
`destdir` are the two directories you specify when running ikiwiki by
- hand. `rcsrepo` is the path to your master rcs repository. Make sure
- that all of these are pointing to the right directories, and read
- through and configure the rest of the file to your liking.
-
- Note that the default file has a block to configure an Rcs wrapper to
- update the wiki. You need to uncomment the related block for whatever
- rcs you use and comment out the other rcs blocks.
+ hand. Make sure that these are pointing to the right directories, and
+ read through and configure the rest of the file to your liking.
When you're satisfied, run `ikiwiki --setup ikiwiki.setup`, and it
- will set everything up and update your wiki.
+ will set everything up.
-8. Set up [[CGI]] to allow editing the wiki from the web.
+7. Turn on additional features.
- Just edit ikiwiki.setup, uncomment the block for the cgi wrapper, make
- sure the filename for the cgi wrapper is ok, run
- `ikiwiki --setup ikiwiki.setup`, and you're done!
-
-9. Add [[PageHistory]] links to the top of pages. This requires you to have
- setup a repository browser. For Subversion, you may use [[ViewCVS]] or
- something similar to access your [[Subversion]] repository. For Git,
- [[Gitweb]] can be used.
+ Now you have a basic wiki with a configuration file. Time to experiment
+ with ikiwiki's many features.
- The `historyurl` setting makes ikiwiki add the links, and in that url,
- "\[[file]]" is replaced with the name of the file to view. So edit
- ikiwiki.setup and set `historyurl` to something like this for
- Subversion:
+ Let's first enable a key wiki feature and set up [[CGI]] to allow
+ editing the wiki from the web. Just edit ikiwiki.setup, uncomment the
+ block for the cgi wrapper, make sure the filename for the cgi wrapper
+ is ok, run `ikiwiki --setup ikiwiki.setup`, and you're done!
- `http://svn.host/trunk/\[[file]]?root=wiki`
+ There are lots of other configuration options in ikiwiki.setup that you
+ can uncomment, configure, and enable by re-running
+ `ikiwiki --setup ikiwiki.setup`. Be sure to browse through all the
+ [[plugins]]..
- Or this for Git:
+8. Put your wiki in revision control.
- `http://git.host/gitweb.cgi?p=wiki.git;a=history;f=[[file]]`
+ At this point you might want to check your wiki in to a revision control
+ system you can get history of past changes and revert edits. Depending
+ on the revision control system you choose, the way this is done varies.
- Then run `ikiwiki --setup ikiwiki.setup` again.
-
-10. Enjoy your new wiki! Add yourself to [[IkiWikiUsers]]
+ There's little that's ikiwiki specific about these instructions; this is
+ just how you put a directory under revision control using the various
+ systems that ikiwiki supports. Note that the .ikiwiki subdirectory is
+ where ikiwiki keeps its state, and should be preserved, but not checked
+ into revision control.
+
+ [[toggle id=subversion text="Subversion"]]
+ [[toggleable id=subversion text="""
+ REPOSITORY=~/wikirepo
+ svnadmin create $REPOSITORY
+ svn mkdir file://$REPOSITORY/trunk -m "create trunk"
+ cd $SRCDIR
+ svn co file://$REPOSITORY/trunk .
+ svn add *
+ svn commit -m "initial import"
+ """]]
+
+ [[toggle id=git text="Git"]]
+ [[toggleable id=git text="""
+ When using Git, you probably want to set up two repositories, of which
+ one should be bare (meaning that it does not have a working tree
+ checked out). We call the bare repository the "repository" and the
+ other will be the "srcdir" (which `ikiwiki` uses to compile the wiki).
+ There are [other
+ ways](http://blog.madduck.net/vcs/2007.07.11_publishing-git-repositories)
+ to do the following, but this might be easiest:
+
+ REPOSITORY=~/wiki.git
+ GIT_DIR=$REPOSITORY git --bare init --shared
+ cd $SRCDIR
+ git init
+ echo /.ikiwiki > .gitignore
+ git add .
+ git commit -m "initial commit"
+ git remote add origin $REPOSITORY
+ git config branch.master.merge refs/heads/master
+ git push --all
+
+ It is **paramount** that you **never** push to the Git repository in
+ `$SRCDIR` ([this FAQ entry explains
+ why](http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitFaq#head-b6a3d85f677763313159eb39f7dbf4579d4ee28b)).
+ Instead, if you want to work on the wiki from a remote machine, clone
+ `$REPOSITORY`, using either the `git` transport (if available), or
+ `ssh`.
+
+ If at any point you commit changes in `$SRCDIR`, make sure to `git
+ push` them to the `$REPOSITORY`.
+ """]]
+
+ [[toggle id=tla text="TLA"]]
+ [[toggleable id=tla text="""
+ REPOSITORY=~/wikirepo
+ tla make-archive me@localhost--wiki $REPOSITORY
+ tla my-id "<me@localhost>"
+ cd $SRCDIR
+ tla archive-setup me@localhost--wiki/wiki--0
+ tla init-tree me@localhost--wiki/wiki--0
+ # Edit {arch}/=tagging-method and change the precious
+ # line to add the .ikiwiki directory to the regexp.
+ tla add *
+ tla import
+ """]]
+
+ [[toggle id=mercurial text="Mercurial"]]
+ [[toggleable id=mercurial text="""
+ REPOSITORY=$SRCDIR
+ hg init $REPOSITORY
+ cd $REPOSITORY
+ hg add *
+ hg commit -m "initial import"
+ """]]
+
+ [[toggle id=monotone text="Monotone"]]
+ [[toggleable id=monotone text="""
+ # These instructions are standard instructions to import a directory into monotone
+ # and set it up so that you don't need any passwords to use it
+ REPOSITORY=~/.ikiwiki/mtn.db
+ BRANCH=com.company.wikiname
+ # remember the password you use in the next step and
+ # substitute it for 'wikiKeyPass' in the get_passphrase() hook below
+ # note the you should never generate two monotone keys with the same name
+ mtn genkey web@machine.company.com
+ mtn db init --db=$REPOSITORY
+ mv $SRCDIR $SRCDIR-old
+ cd $SRCDIR-old
+ echo ".ikiwiki" > $SRCDIR-old/.mtn-ignore
+ mtn --db=$REPOSITORY --branch=$BRANCH import . -m "initial import"
+ cd ..
+ mtn --db=$REPOSITORY --branch=$BRANCH checkout $SRCDIR
+ mv $SRCDIR-old/.ikiwiki $SRCDIR
+ cat << EOF > $SRCDIR/_MTN/monotonerc
+ function get_passphrase (branchname)
+ return "wikiKeyPass"
+ end
+ EOF
+ rm -r $SRCDIR-old
+ """]]
+
+9. Configure ikiwiki to use revision control.
+
+ Once your wiki is checked in to the revision control system,
+ you should configure ikiwiki to use revision control. Edit your
+ ikiwiki.setup, and uncomment the lines for the revision control system
+ you chose to use. Be sure to set `svnrepo` to $REPOSITORY, if using
+ subversion. Uncomment the block for the wrapper for your revision
+ control system, and configure the wrapper path in that block
+ appropriately (for Git, it should be `$REPO/hooks/post-update`).
+
+ Once it's all set up, run `ikiwiki --setup ikiwiki.setup` once more.
+ Now you should be able to edit files in $SRCDIR, and use your revision
+ control system to commit them, and the wiki will automatically update.
+ And in the web interface, RecentChanges should work, and files changed
+ by web users will also be committed using revision control.
+
+10. Enjoy your new wiki! Add yourself to [[IkiWikiUsers]]. And check out
+ [[tips]] to find out how to get more out of ikiwiki.