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]], [[Git]],
[[TLA]] or [[Mercurial]], and that has optional support for commits from the web.
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[[Install]] ikiwiki. See [[download]] for where to get it.
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Create the master rcs repository for your wiki.
# Subversion
svnadmin create /svn/wikirepo
svn mkdir file:///svn/wikirepo/trunk -m create
# Git
mkdir /git/wikirepo
cd /git/wikirepo
git init-db
# Git requires something be in the repo to start with.
cp /usr/share/ikiwiki/basewiki/index.mdwn .
git add .
git commit -m create -a
# No need to keep files in the master repository; so at this
# stage, you may want to remove all files (except .git) to
# save disk space.
# TLA
mkdir /tla
tla make-archive me@localhost--wiki /tla/wikirepo
tla my-id "<me@localhost>"
# Mercurial
hg init /hg/wikirepo
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Check out the repository to make the working copy that ikiwiki will use.
# Subversion
svn co file:///svn/wikirepo/trunk ~/wikiwc
# Git
# Create a local clone to save disk space and also to
# optimize performance. See git-clone(1).
git clone -l -s /git/wikirepo ~/wikiwc
# TLA
mkdir ~/wikiwc
cd ~/wikiwc
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 import
# Mercurial
# Mercurial uses a single repo approach, so no need to
# clone anything. Because the following examples
# refer to the ~/wikiwc working copy we symlink it:
ln -s /hg/wikirepo ~/wikiwc
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Build your wiki for the first time.
ikiwiki --verbose ~/wikiwc/ ~/public_html/wiki/ \
--url=http://host/~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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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
# TLA
tla add index.mdwn
tla commit
# Mercurial
hg add index.mdwn
hg commit -m customised index.mdwn
You can also add any files you like from scratch of course.
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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]]).
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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. And it's
also getting old to have to manualy rebuild the wiki each time you
change a file. 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.
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. svnrepo is the path to your subversion 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.
If you want to use something other than subversion, comment out the
subversion configuration, and uncomment and edit the configuration for
your chosen RCS.
Note that the default file has a block to configure a [[post-commit]]
wrapper to update the wiki. You need to uncomment the related block for
whatever RCS you use and comment out the other rcs blocks.
When you're satisfied, run ikiwiki --setup ikiwiki.setup, and it
will set everything up and update your wiki.
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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!
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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, etc.
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 ucomment the appropriate historyurl setting and edit
it for your setup.
Then run ikiwiki --setup ikiwiki.setup again.
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Enjoy your new wiki! Add yourself to [[IkiWikiUsers]].
