Difference: TWikiInstallationGuide (42 vs. 43)

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TWiki Installation Guide

Installation instructions for the TWiki 01-Sep-2001 production release

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Overview

 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 OS and server that meet the system requirements. Documentation for other platforms is currently limited. For Windows, check TWiki:Codev/TWikiOnWindows. Search the TWiki:Codev web for other intallation notes.

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Step 1: Create & Configure the Directories

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NOTE: If you don't have access to your Web server configuration files - for example, if you're installing on an ISP-hosted account - use the alternative Step 1 instead.
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ALERT! NOTE: If you don't have access to your Web server configuration files - for example, if you're installing on an ISP-hosted account - 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 .
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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.
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ALERT! 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:
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  <Directory "/home/httpd/twiki/bin"> Options +ExecCGI SetHandler cgi-script
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AllowOverride all
  Allow from all </Directory> <Directory "/home/httpd/twiki/pub"> Options FollowSymLinks +Includes AllowOverride None Allow from all
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</Directory> <Directory "/home/httpd/twiki/data"> deny from all </Directory> <Directory "/home/httpd/twiki/templates"> deny from all
  </Directory>
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  • 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:
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twiki/bin CGI bin cgi-enabled dir /home/smith/public_html/cgi-bin
twiki/lib library files same level as twiki/bin /home/smith/public_html/lib
twiki/pub public files htdoc enabled dir /home/smith/public_html/pub
twiki/data topic data outside of htdoc tree (for security) /home/smith/twiki/data
twiki/templates web templates outside of htdoc tree (for security) /home/smith/twiki/templates
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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
 

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    • 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.
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  • NOTE: 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:
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  • HELP 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).
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      • 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).
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      • TIP 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.
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  • NOTE: 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 sed:
    for f in *,v; do sed 's/nobody\:/www-data\:/' $f > x; mv x $f; done
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  • HELP 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 sed:
cd twiki/data
for f in */*,v; do sed 's/nobody\:/www-data\:/' $f > x; mv -f x $f; done
 

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.
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    • Make sure RCS is installed. Set $rcsDir in twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg to mach the location of your RCS binaries.
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    • Make sure RCS is installed. Set $rcsDir in twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg to mach the location of your RCS binaries. You can check this by issuing the comand rcs at the prompt, it should result in something like "rcs: no input file".
 
  • Security issue: Directories twiki/data , twiki/templates and all its subdirectories should be set so that they are not visible as a URL. (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: Finish Up from Your Browser

  • Point your Web browser at http://yourdomain.com/twiki/bin/view and start TWiki-ing away!
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    • TIP 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 TWikiPreferences topic in the TWiki:TWiki web to set the WIKIWEBMASTER email address, and other preferences.
  • 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.
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Enabling Authentication of Users

  • If TWiki is installed on a non-authenticated server - not using SSL - and you'd like to authenticate users:
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    1. 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 /urlpath/to/TWiki/index.html http://your.domain.com/urlpath/to/TWiki/bin/view
      AuthUserFile /filepath/to/TWiki/data/.htpasswd
      ErrorDocument 401 /urlpath/to/TWiki/bin/oops/TWiki/TWikiRegistration?template=oopsauth
      • NOTE: In case you renamed the CGI script files to have a file extension you need to reflect that in the edit, view, preview, etc entries in .htaccess.
      • NOTE: 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 section of access.conf for your twiki/bin directory.
      • NOTE: The distribution package has a twiki/data/.htpasswd file which contains some 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 in case you want to allow guest logins.
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    1. 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
      • ALERT! 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.
      • HELP 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.
      • ALERT! NOTE: In the TWiki distribution package, tje 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.
 
    1. Copy the TWikiRegistrationPub topic to 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.
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      • HINT: 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 processed correctly.
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      • TIP HINT: 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 processed correctly.
 
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    • 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.
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    • ALERT! 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.
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  To create a new web:
  1. Create a new web data directory under twiki/data and check the file permission of the directory.
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    • Use a name starting with characters A..Z, followed by a..z and/or 0..9 characters, but not a WikiWord.
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    • Use a name consisting of characters A..Z , a..z but not in WikiNotation. (The name should start with one (or more) uppercase letters, but have no uppercase letters after the first group -- if it starts with a lowercase letter or is a WikiWord, some features of TWiki will not work as expected.)
 
  1. Copy all files from the twiki/data/_default directory to the new data directory, preserving the original files' owner, group and permissions (on Unix, use cp -p). The data files must be writable by the owner the CGI scripts are running on (usually, nobody).
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    • HINT: You can set permissions of .txt and .txt,v files to -rw-rw-rw- (666) and then edit the topic using your browser; RCS will restore the file permissions correctly when saving the topic.
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    • TIP HINT: You can set permissions of .txt and .txt,v files to -rw-rw-rw- (666) and then edit the topic using your browser; RCS will restore the file permissions correctly when saving the topic.
 
  1. Add the new web to the web list (visible in the upper right corner of each topic) by editing the site-level preferences, TWikiPreferences:
    • Add the new web to the %WIKIWEBLIST% variable.
  2. Update the web settings by editing the WebPreferences topic of the new web:
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  • 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.
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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!
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ALERT! 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 - 13 Sep 2001

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-- MikeMannix - 03 Dec 2001
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-- MikeMannix - 27 Jan 2002
 
META TOPICMOVED by="MikeMannix" date="999319650" from="TWiki.TWikiInstallationNotes" to="TWiki.TWikiInstallationGuide"
 
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