Setting up a wiki when you don't have root

ruby-talk
1

I’m taking a research-oriented class (Quantum Computing) where all the
students are supposed to find info and develop new ideas based on this
research and then share with the rest of the class. It’s the share with
the rest of the class part that’s problematic. I suggested that we set up
a wiki - of course nobody knew what that was, but when I explained it the
prof told me to go and set one up for the class (next time maybe I won’t
be quite so forthcoming).

So the problem is, while I understand how Wikis work and I’ve used them
(and I’ve even set them up for internal use at work) I’m not quite sure
how I would go about setting one up so that anyone on the internet can
use it without having root access.

I want to use Instiki since it’s so easy to setup, but how do I go about
setting it up on port 80 without root access so that anyone can get at it?

Phil

2

I want to use Instiki since it’s so easy to setup, but how do I go
about
setting it up on port 80 without root access so that anyone can get at
it?

You can start Instiki to run on any port including 80. But it’s very
likely that it’ll conflict with an existing Apache installation. So
then you can either just pick another port, like the Instiki default of
2500, and hope that the machine allows connections on that port. If it
doesn’t, ask the admin to open it for you.

If neither of the above works, you can try your luck with
mod_proxy/mod_rewrite and forward calls to 80 to your Instiki running
on port 2500. If you have access to the httpd.conf, or a vhost that
gets included by httpd.conf, something like this will work:

<VirtualHost *>
ServerName wiki.mydomain.com
ProxyPass / http://127.0.0.1:2500/
ProxyPassReverse / http://127.0.0.1:2500/

Now you just need to point a domain like wiki.mydomain.com to the
machine. There’s a bunch of free services for managing DNS records out
there – http://www.dyndns.org/ is one.

If that doesn’t do it either (since you have to get Apache restarted at
least once to get the vhost in), you can try with a .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://127.0.0.1:2500/$1 [P] [QSA]

That requires that you have the right to do mod_rewrite in your
.htaccess file and that both mod_rewrite and mod_proxy is installed and
turned on with the Apache running.

P.S.: I’ve mirrored this answer on
nextangle.com –
if others have suggestions or help or corrections, please do add it to
this page as well. Thanks!

P.P.S.: I’ve just registered instiki.org and I plan to get a pretty
logo drawn as well. This pretty little thing my just turn out to grow
into a Real Project after all – who would have thought :slight_smile:

···

–
David Heinemeier Hansson,
http://instiki.nextangle.com/ – A No-Step-Three Wiki in Ruby
http://www.basecamphq.com/ – Web-based Project Management
http://www.loudthinking.com/ – Broadcasting Brain

3

Phil Tomson wrote:

I’m taking a research-oriented class (Quantum Computing) where all the
students are supposed to find info and develop new ideas based on this
research and then share with the rest of the class. It’s the share with
the rest of the class part that’s problematic. I suggested that
we set up
a wiki - of course nobody knew what that was, but when I explained it the
prof told me to go and set one up for the class (next time maybe I won’t
be quite so forthcoming).

So the problem is, while I understand how Wikis work and I’ve used them
(and I’ve even set them up for internal use at work) I’m not quite sure
how I would go about setting one up so that anyone on the internet can
use it without having root access.

I want to use Instiki since it’s so easy to setup, but how do I go about
setting it up on port 80 without root access so that anyone can get at it?

You might want to try UseMod wiki (www.usemod.com), setup doesn’t get much
simpler than this. Its a perl script in a single perl file that you just
drop into the cgi-bin directory. All configuration (like the name of your
wiki) is done by editing this perl file and changing a few variable settings
at the top.

In fairness, Ruby’s new super-cool Instiki is even simpler, but you can’t
usually count on Ruby being installed. In contrast, perl is almost always
available on the server.

Curt

4

Phil,

RuWiki is really easy to setup as a CGI script. You might consider
that one too.

Chad

···

On 20/4/2004, at 4:54 PM, Phil Tomson wrote:

I’m taking a research-oriented class (Quantum Computing) where all the
students are supposed to find info and develop new ideas based on this
research and then share with the rest of the class. It’s the share
with
the rest of the class part that’s problematic. I suggested that we
set up
a wiki - of course nobody knew what that was, but when I explained it
the
prof told me to go and set one up for the class (next time maybe I
won’t
be quite so forthcoming).

So the problem is, while I understand how Wikis work and I’ve used them
(and I’ve even set them up for internal use at work) I’m not quite sure
how I would go about setting one up so that anyone on the internet can
use it without having root access.

I want to use Instiki since it’s so easy to setup, but how do I go
about
setting it up on port 80 without root access so that anyone can get at
it?

5

In fairness, Ruby’s new super-cool Instiki is even simpler, but you
can’t
usually count on Ruby being installed. In contrast, perl is almost
always
available on the server.

Actually, Ruby 1.6.7 is available on a great many servers. If someone
would like to submit a compatibility patch that would dump Instiki
down, it would be even easier. Of course I’d have to include WEBrick
and any other libraries that wasn’t available at 1.6.7 time, but that’s
not too bad.

I wonder how badly RedCloth and RDoc depend on 1.8.x? I looks like
BlueCloth requires 1.8.1, though.

···

–
David Heinemeier Hansson,
http://instiki.nextangle.com/ – A No-Step-Three Wiki in Ruby
http://www.basecamphq.com/ – Web-based Project Management
http://www.loudthinking.com/ – Broadcasting Brain

6

…and, I’m finally getting back to developing on it! Version 0.7.0 (with
0.8.0, 0.9.0, 0.10.0, and 0.11.0 coming before 1.0.0) will be released soon,
as soon as I can get with Alan to see if a bug that was reported on
RubyForge has been fixed or tracked and make sure that the tokenisation unit
tests are updated to match an API change required to fix some bugs reported
directly to me.

Additionally, I am also working on 0.8.0 and may be able to do some work
related to Ruwiki at my new job because they are labouring under a very slow
and painful PHP-based Wiki (that appears to be doing database storage
inefficiently).

The bad news about 0.8.0 is that it will require a conversion utility for
current users of Ruwiki, as I am joining 2004 and using YAML as the storage
format for the Wiki pages. The good news is that it will have a lot of
features that are needed, possibly a bit earlier than planned and in my
current To Do list.

-austin

···

On Wed, 21 Apr 2004 09:07:30 +0900, Chad Fowler wrote:

On 20/4/2004, at 4:54 PM, Phil Tomson wrote:

I’m taking a research-oriented class (Quantum Computing) where all the
students are supposed to find info and develop new ideas based on this
research and then share with the rest of the class. It’s the share with
the rest of the class part that’s problematic. I suggested that we set
up
a wiki - of course nobody knew what that was, but when I explained it
the
prof told me to go and set one up for the class (next time maybe I
won’t be quite so forthcoming).

So the problem is, while I understand how Wikis work and I’ve used them
(and I’ve even set them up for internal use at work) I’m not quite sure
how I would go about setting one up so that anyone on the internet can
use it without having root access.

I want to use Instiki since it’s so easy to setup, but how do I go about
setting it up on port 80 without root access so that anyone can get at
it?
RuWiki is really easy to setup as a CGI script. You might consider that
one too.

–
austin ziegler * austin@halostatue.ca * Toronto, ON, Canada
software designer * pragmatic programmer * 2004.04.20
* 23.39.01

7

In article 329EBA15-931D-11D8-BAEB-000A958E6254@loudthinking.com,

···

David Heinemeier Hansson david@loudthinking.com wrote:

In fairness, Ruby’s new super-cool Instiki is even simpler, but you
can’t
usually count on Ruby being installed. In contrast, perl is almost
always
available on the server.

Actually, Ruby 1.6.7 is available on a great many servers. If someone
would like to submit a compatibility patch that would dump Instiki
down, it would be even easier. Of course I’d have to include WEBrick
and any other libraries that wasn’t available at 1.6.7 time, but that’s
not too bad.

Turns out we do have Ruby 1.6.7 available. I think we could convince the
sys-admins to install 1.8.1, but I don’t think we could get them to set
up the wiki for us.

Phil

8

In fairness, Ruby’s new super-cool Instiki is even simpler, but you
can’t
usually count on Ruby being installed. In contrast, perl is almost
always
available on the server.

Actually, Ruby 1.6.7 is available on a great many servers. If someone
would like to submit a compatibility patch that would dump Instiki
down, it would be even easier. Of course I’d have to include WEBrick
and any other libraries that wasn’t available at 1.6.7 time, but that’s
not too bad.

I wonder how badly RedCloth and RDoc depend on 1.8.x? I looks like
BlueCloth requires 1.8.1, though.

RedCloth is fine on 1.6.8, but madeleine is 1.8 only :frowning:

···

–
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board
– Mark Twain
Rasputin :: Jack of All Trades - Master of Nuns

9

Excellent news about continued work on RuWiki!

While you’re writing the convertor for users that are upgrading, how
about writing a usemod → RuWiki convertor? That would make a switch
of sites like RubyGarden.orb/ruby much much easier. :slight_smile:

Chad

···

On 20/4/2004, at 11:43 PM, Austin Ziegler wrote:

The bad news about 0.8.0 is that it will require a conversion utility
for
current users of Ruwiki, as I am joining 2004 and using YAML as the
storage
format for the Wiki pages. The good news is that it will have a lot of
features that are needed, possibly a bit earlier than planned and in my
current To Do list.

10

Turns out we do have Ruby 1.6.7 available. I think we could convince
the
sys-admins to install 1.8.1, but I don’t think we could get them to
set
up the wiki for us.

You can run the wiki itself without root on your own account. The only
problem is making it visible to the outside world. That can be solved
by one of the methods I described.

···

–
David Heinemeier Hansson,
http://instiki.nextangle.com/ – A No-Step-Three Wiki in Ruby
http://www.basecamphq.com/ – Web-based Project Management
http://www.loudthinking.com/ – Broadcasting Brain

11

Well, the Ruwiki converter is simply something that does effectively
YAML.dump(Marshal.load(filename)) :slight_smile:

I would gladly accept a Usemod convertor written by someone, but I also have
plans to support some things that make working with alternative markup
engines that much easier… I can’t give too much on details right now,
because the API hasn’t been set yet.

-austin

···

On Wed, 21 Apr 2004 20:06:42 +0900, Chad Fowler wrote:

On 20/4/2004, at 11:43 PM, Austin Ziegler wrote:

The bad news about 0.8.0 is that it will require a conversion utility
for current users of Ruwiki, as I am joining 2004 and using YAML as the
storage format for the Wiki pages. The good news is that it will have a
lot of features that are needed, possibly a bit earlier than planned and
in my current To Do list.
Excellent news about continued work on RuWiki!

While you’re writing the convertor for users that are upgrading, how
about writing a usemod → RuWiki convertor? That would make a switch of
sites like RubyGarden.orb/ruby much much easier. :slight_smile:

–
austin ziegler * austin@halostatue.ca * Toronto, ON, Canada
software designer * pragmatic programmer * 2004.04.25
* 13.20.23

12

I would gladly accept a Usemod convertor written by someone, but I
also have
plans to support some things that make working with alternative markup
engines that much easier… I can’t give too much on details right now,
because the API hasn’t been set yet.

That sounds like a good idea. The latest release of Instiki features
markup exporting. You get the entire contents of a wiki in their
original markup form, which should be rather easy to parse into another
wiki system.

There’s great potential for interoperability between wikis as
standardized markup syntaxes like Textile and Markdown takes hold.

Perhaps we could team up for a common interop format that someone could
write convertors for, which would benefit RuWiki, Instiki, and any
other wiki that implemented the same API.

···

–
David Heinemeier Hansson,
http://www.instiki.org/ – A No-Step-Three Wiki in Ruby
http://www.basecamphq.com/ – Web-based Project Management
http://www.loudthinking.com/ – Broadcasting Brain