TWiki Installation Guide
Installation instructions for the TWiki 01-Feb-2003 production release. Update notes for the new RCS configuration are marked Dataframework.
These installation steps are based on the Apache web server on Linux. TWiki runs on other web servers and Unix systems, and should be fine with any web server and OS that meet the system requirements. Documentation for other platforms is somewhat limited:
Standard Installation
Request and download the TWiki 01-Feb-2003 distribution in Unix ZIP format from http://TWiki.org/download.html. Please review the AdminSkillsAssumptions before you install TWiki.
Step 1: Create & Configure the Directories
NOTE: If you don't have access to your Web server configuration files - for example, if you're installing on an ISP-hosted account, or you don't have administrator privileges on your intranet server - use the alternative Step 1 instead.
- Create directory
/home/httpd/twiki
and unzip the TWiki distribution into this directory.
- The
twiki/bin
directory of TWiki must be set as a cgi-bin directory. Add /home/httpd/twiki/bin
to file /etc/httpd/httpd.conf
with only ExecCGI
option.
- The
twiki/pub
directory of TWiki must be set so that it is visible as a URL. Add /home/httpd/twiki
to file httpd.conf
with normal access options (copy from /home/httpd/html
).
- Now add
ScriptAlias
for /twiki/bin
and Alias
for /twiki
to file httpd.conf
.
NOTE: The ScriptAlias
must come before the Alias
, otherwise, Apache will fail to correctly set up /twiki/bin/
, by treating it as just another subdirectory of the /twiki/
alias.
- The
twiki/data
and twiki/templates
directories should be set so that they are not visible as URLs. Add them to httpd.conf
with deny from all
.
Example httpd.conf
entries:
ScriptAlias /twiki/bin/ "/home/httpd/twiki/bin/"
Alias /twiki/ "/home/httpd/twiki/"
<Directory "/home/httpd/twiki/bin">
Options +ExecCGI
SetHandler cgi-script
Allow from all
</Directory>
<Directory "/home/httpd/twiki/pub">
Options FollowSymLinks +Includes
AllowOverride None
Allow from all
</Directory>
<Directory "/home/httpd/twiki/data">
deny from all
</Directory>
<Directory "/home/httpd/twiki/templates">
deny from all
</Directory>
- Restart Apache by
/etc/rc.d/rc5.d/S85httpd restart
.
- Test that the
twiki/bin
directory is CGI-enabled by trying visiting it in your browser:
- Enter the URL for the
bin
directory, http://yourdomain.com/twiki/bin/
.
- Your settings are OK if you get a message like
"Forbidden. You don't have permission to access /twiki/bin/ on this server"
.
- Settings are NOT correct if you get something like
"Index of /twiki/bin"
- recheck your httpd.conf
file.
Step 1 for Non-Root Accounts
To install TWiki on a system where you don't have Unix/Linux root (administrator) privileges, for example, on a hosted Web account or an intranet server administered by someone else:
- Download and unzip TWiki on your local PC
- Using the table below, create a directory structure on your host server
- Upload the TWiki files by FTP (transfer as text except for the image files in
pub
)
TWiki dir: | What it is: | Where to copy: | Example: |
twiki | start-up pages | root TWiki dir | /home/smith/twiki/ |
twiki/bin | CGI bin | CGI-enabled dir | /home/smith/twiki/bin |
twiki/lib | library files | same level as twiki/bin | /home/smith/twiki/lib |
twiki/pub | public files | htdoc enabled dir | /home/smith/twiki/pub |
twiki/data | topic data | dir secure from public access | /home/smith/twiki/data |
twiki/templates | web templates | dir secure from public access | /home/smith/twiki/templates |
If you are not able to create the twiki/lib
directory at the same level as the twiki/bin
directory (e.g. because CGI bin
directories can't be under your home directory and you don't have root access), you can create this directory elsewhere and edit the setlib.cfg
file in the bin
directory:
# -------------- Change these settings if required
$twikiLibPath = '/some/other/path/lib'; # Path to lib directory containing TWiki.pm
You can also edit $localPerlLibPath
in the setlib.cfg
file if you are not root and need to install additional CPAN modules, but can't update the main Perl installation files on the server. Just set this variable to the full pathname to your local lib directory, typically under your home directory.
Step 2: Set File Permissions
- Make sure Perl 5 and the Perl CGI library are installed on your system. The default location of Perl is
/usr/bin/perl
. If it's elsewhere, change the path to Perl in the first line of each script in the twiki/bin
directory, or create a symbolic link from /usr/bin/perl
.
- IMPORTANT: On ISP-hosted accounts, Perl CGI scripts usually require a
.cgi
extension to run. Some systems need .pl
, the regular Perl extension. Modify all twiki/bin
script filenames if necessary.
- Set the file permission of all Perl scripts in the
twiki/bin
directory as executable to -rwxr-xr-x
(755).
- To be able to edit the Perl scripts and
.tmpl
files it is necessary to chown
and chgrp -R twiki
so all the files have the owner you want.
- This Guide assumes user
nobody
ownership for all files manipulated by the CGI scripts (executed by the Web server), and user twiki
for all other files. You can:
- replace
nobody
with another user if your server executes scripts under a different name (ex: default for Debian is www-data
).
- HINT: Run the
testenv
script from your browser: http://yourdomain.com/twiki/bin/testenv
. It will show you the user name of the CGI scripts, a table listing all CGI environment variables, and a test of your twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg
configuration file (you'll configure that in a minute).
- replace user
twiki
with your own username
- Set the permission of all files below
twiki/data
so that they are writable by user nobody
. A simple way is to chmod
them to -rw-rw-r--
(664) and to chown
them to nobody
.
- Set the permission of the
twiki/data
directory and its subdirectories so that files in there are writable by user nobody
. A simple way is to chmod them to drwxrwxr-x
(775) and to chown
them to nobody
.
- Set the permission of the
twiki/pub
directory and all its subdirectories so that files in there are writable by user nobody
. A simple way is to chmod
them to drwxrwxr-x
(775) and to chown
them to nobody
.
- The
twiki/data/*/*.txt,v
RCS repository files in the installation package are locked by user nobody
. If your CGI scripts are not running as user nobody
, it's not possible to check in files (you'll see that the revision number won't increase after saving a topic). In this case, you need to unlock all repository files (check the RCS man pages) and lock them with a different user, ex www-data
, or delete them all - new files will be automatically created the first time each topic is edited. A simple way to change ownership is with a search-and-replace in all files; for example, using perl:
cd twiki/data
perl -pi~ -e 's/nobody:/www-data:/' */*,v
Step 3: Set the Main Configuration File
- Edit the file
twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg
, setting the variables to your needs.
- Set the file extension in the
$scriptSuffix
variable to cgi
or pl
if required.
- RCS - revision control system to store revision of topics and attachments. You can use RCS executables or a version of RCS written in Perl, note that as the time of writing (Apr 2002) the Perl version has not been widely tested, so if you want to put up a live site the RCS executables are recommended.
- Set
$storeTopicImpl = "RcsWrap";
for the RCS executables and make sure RCS is installed. Set $rcsDir
in twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg
to match the location of your RCS binaries. You can check this by issuing the command rcs
at the prompt, it should result in something like "rcs: no input file"
.
- Check that you have GNU
diff
, by typing diff -v
- an error indicates you have a non-GNU diff, so install the GNU diffutils
package and make sure that diff
is on the PATH used by TWiki (see $safeEnvPath
in the TWiki.cfg
file).
- Set
$storeTopicImpl = "RcsLite";
for the Perl based RCS
- Security issue: Directories
twiki/data
, twiki/templates
and all their subdirectories should be set so that they are not visible through URLs. (Alternatively, move the directories to a place where they are not visible, and change the variables in twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg
accordingly)
- Test your settings by running the
testenv
script from your browser: http://yourdomain.com/twiki/bin/testenv
. Check if your twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg
configuration file settings are correct.
Step 4: Configure Site-Wide Email Preferences
- From your web browser, edit the TWikiPreferences topic in the TWiki:TWiki web to set the
WIKIWEBMASTER
email address, and other email settings required for registration and WebChangesAlert to work:
-
WIKIWEBMASTER
should be set to the email address of the TWiki administrator
-
SMTPMAILHOST
is typically set on Windows or other non-Unix/Linux systems, where sendmail
or similar is not available. When this is set and the Perl module Net::SMTP
is installed, TWiki will connect to this SMTP server (e.g. mail.yourdomain.com
) to send email for user registration and WebChangesAlerts. If you do have a sendmail-type program, leave SMTPMAILHOST
unset so that the external sendmail program is used instead (defined by $mailProgram
in TWiki.cfg
).
-
SMTPSENDERHOST
is optional, and set to the domain name sending the email (e.g. twiki.yourdomain.com
). For use where the SMTP server requires that you identify the TWiki server sending mail. If not set, Net::SMTP
will guess it for you.
- You may want to set up other TWikiPreferences later on.
Step 5: Finish Up from Your Browser
- Point your Web browser at
http://yourdomain.com/twiki/bin/view
and start TWiki-ing away!
- Or, point to
http://yourdomain.com/twiki/
to get the pre-TWiki index.html
page, with a link to the view
script. Customize this page if you want a public intro screen with a login link, instead of immediately calling up the .htaccess login dialog by going directly to view
.
- Edit the WebPreferences topic in each web, if necessary: set individual
WEBCOPYRIGHT
messages, and other preferences.
- Enable email notification of topic changes, TWikiSiteTools has more.
- Edit the WebNotify topic in all webs and add the users you want to notify.
- Add the TWiki:Main/PoweredByTWikiLogo to your Main topic.
- You can add new
%VARIABLES%
. Define site-level variables in the TWikiPreferences topic. See also: TWikiVariables.
That's it for the standard virgin installation of TWiki. Read on for server-level customization options.
Additional Server-Level Options
With your new TWiki installation up and running, you can manage most aspects of your site from the browser interface. Only a few functions require access to the server file system, via Telnet or FTP. You can make these server-level changes during installation, and at any time afterwards.
Enabling Authentication of Users
- If TWiki is installed on a non-authenticated server - not using SSL - and you'd like to authenticate users:
- Rename file
.htaccess.txt
in the twiki/bin
directory to .htaccess
and change it to your needs. For details, consult the HTTP server documentation (for Apache server: [1], [2]). In particular, the following red part needs to be configured correctly:
Redirect /urlpathto/twiki/index.html http://yourdomain.com/urlpathto/twiki/bin/view
AuthUserFile /filepathto/twiki/data/.htpasswd
ErrorDocument 401 /urlpathto/twiki/bin/oops/TWiki/TwikiRegistration?template=oopsauth
- NOTE: If you had to add a
.cgi
or .pl
file extension to the bin
scripts, make sure to do the same for edit
, view
, preview
, and all the other script names in .htaccess
.
- The browser should ask for login name and password when you click on the Edit link. In case
.htaccess
does not have the desired effect, you need to enable it: Add "AllowOverride All" to the Directory [3] section of access.conf
for your twiki/bin
directory.
- This applies only if you have root access: on hosted accounts, you shouldn't have this problem - otherwise, email tech support.
- NOTE: In the TWiki distribution package, the
twiki/data/.htpasswd.txt
file contains several TWiki core team user accounts and a guest user account. You probably want to remove those accounts by deleting the entries in .htpasswd
. Do not remove the guest user if you want to allow guest logins.
- Copy the TwikiRegistrationPub? topic to TwikiRegistration, overwriting old version of TwikiRegistration. Do that by either editing the topics in theTWiki web, or by renaming the
.txt
and .txt,v
files in the twiki/data/TWiki
directory.
- Customization:
- You can customize the registration form by deleting or adding input tags. The
name=""
parameter of the input tags must start with: "Twk0..."
(if this is an optional entry), or "Twk1..."
(if this is a required entry). This ensures that the fields are carried over into the user home page correctly.
- You can customize the default user home page in NewUserTemplate.
- Register yourself in the TwikiRegistration topic.
- NOTE: When a user registers, a new line with the username and encrypted password is added to the
data/.htpasswd
file. The .htpasswd
file that comes with the TWiki installation includes user accounts for TWiki core team members that are used for testing on TWiki.org. You can edit the file and delete those lines.
- Create a new topic to check if authentication works.
- Edit the TWikiAdminGroup topic in the TWiki:Main web to include users with system administrator status.
- Edit the TWikiPreferences topic in the TWiki:TWiki web to set access privileges.
- Edit the WebPreferences topic in each web, if necessary: set access priviliges.
That's it for a basic new web set-up!
Optionally, you can also:
- Create custom web-specific templates in a new
twiki/templates/Someweb
directory (otherwise, templates are inherited from twiki/templates
).
- Add TWikiForms for form-based page input that's stored separately from the main free-form topic text.
NOTE: User home topics are located in the TWiki.Main web - don't try to move them or create them in other webs. From any other web, user signatures have to point to TWiki.Main web, using a Main.UserName
or %MAINWEB%.UserName
format. (The %MAINWEB%
variable is an advantage if you ever change the Main web name, but the standard Main.UserName
is easier for users to enter, which is the bottom line!
TWiki File System Info
See Appendix A: TWiki File System for an installed system snapshot and descriptions of all files in the TWiki 01-Sep-2001 distribution.
-- PeterThoeny - 28 Dec 2002
-- MikeMannix - 16 May 2002
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