This tutorial will walk you through setting up a wiki with ikiwiki.
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[[Download]] and [[install]] ikiwiki.
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Decide where your wiki's files will go.
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.
For the purposes of this tutorial, we'll set shell variables
for these locations, and use those variables in the commands that follow.
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.
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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.
"""]]
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.
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Build your wiki for the first time.
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.
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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]]).
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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. 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. 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.
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Turn on additional features.
Now you have a basic wiki with a configuration file. Time to experiment
with ikiwiki's many features.
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!
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]]..
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Put your wiki in revision control.
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.
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
to do the following, but this might be easiest:
REPOSITORY=~/wiki.git
cd $SRCDIR
git init
echo /.ikiwiki > .gitignore
git add .
git commit -m'Initial commit'
# if you expect $REPOSITORY to receive pushs from multiple
# clones, then it is advisable to only accept fast
# forwards -- this is to avoid overwriting the remote
# ref and losing commits from there.
git config receive.denyNonFastForwards true
git config core.bare true
mv .git $REPOSITORY
# we want to preserve the current .ikiwiki directory,
# so temporarily move it to a safe location
mv .ikiwiki ../ikiwiki.sv
cd ..
rm -r $SRCDIR
git clone -l -s $REPOSITORY $SRCDIR
mv ikiwiki.sv $SRCDIR/.ikiwiki
It is paramount that you never push to the Git repository in
$SRCDIR (this FAQ entry explains
why).
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
"""]]
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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.
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Enjoy your new wiki! Add yourself to [[IkiWikiUsers]]. And check out
[[tips]] to find out how to get more out of ikiwiki.
