Note that for more formal bug reports or todo items, you can also edit the
[[bugs]] and [[todo]] pages.
+[[toc ]]
+
# Installation/Setup questions
-I have just installed ikiwiki and it works - at least I have the example index.mdwn page
-compiled and visible. However I have a few issues/problems:-
+Ikiwiki creates a .ikiwiki directory in my wikiwc working directory. Should I
+"svn add .ikiwiki" or add it to svn:ignore?
-* A couple of the 'optional' Perl modules aren't optional, you can't install ikiwiki without them,
-these are HTML::Template and HTML::Scrubber (at least I think it was these two, it's a bit messy
-to go back and find out).
+> `.ikiwiki` is used by ikiwiki to store internal state. You can add it to
+> svn:ignore. --[[Joey]]
+> > Thanks a lot.
-> You're right, HTML::Template is required. HTML::Scrubber is only required
-> in the default configuration, and is optional if the htmlscrubber plugin
-> is disabled. --[[Joey]]
+Is there an easy way to log via e-mail to some webmaster address, instead
+of via syslog?
-* I don't seem to have got an ikiwiki man page created.
+> Not sure why you'd want to do that, but couldn't you use a tool like
+> logwatch to mail selected lines from the syslog? --[[Joey]]
-> It should be installed in /usr/share/man, or a similar directory
-> depending on how your perl is set up and how you did the install.
-> --[[Joey]]
+> > The reason is that I'm not logged in on the web server regularly to
+> > check the log files. I'll see whether I can install a logwatch instance.
-* Running "ikiwiki --setup ikiwiki.setup" doesn't do anything. I have edited ikiwiki.setup to
-my local settings. There are no errors but neither does anything get compiled. An ikiwiki
-command to explicitly do the compile works fine. Am I misunderstanding something here?
-
-> Further tests indicate that ikiwiki isn't seeing changed files so doesn't always rebuild.
-> How does ikiwiki decide when to rebuild? I tried a full command line like "ikiwiki --verbose ikiwiki ~/public_html/ikiwiki --url=http://www.isbd.ltd.uk/~chris/ikiwiki/" and that doesn't do anything
-either though it was the command line I originally used to compile. After a long interval I 'touch'ed
-the files and then it *did* compile but 'touch'ing the files after a few minutes only doesn't seem to force a recompile. I'm even more confused!
-
-> ikiwiki only compiles files whose modification times have changed. It
-> should see any change made as close as a second after the last compile.
-> When run with --setup, ikiwiki always rebuilds every file in the wiki. If
-> --setup is not working, you must have it pointed at the wrong path or
-> something; you can pass -v to see what it's doing. I don't know why it
-> would not see recently changed files; you could try stracing it.
-> --[[Joey]]
+----
+
+# Upgrade steps
+
+I upgrades from 1.40 to 2.6.1. I ran "ikiwiki --setup" using my existing ikiwiki.setup configuration.
+I had many errors like:
+
+ /home/bsdwiki/www/wiki/wikilink/index.html independently created, not overwriting with version from wikilink
+ BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at (eval 5) line 129.
+
+and:
+
+ failed renaming /home/bsdwiki/www/wiki/smileys.ikiwiki-new to /home/bsdwiki/www/wiki/smileys: Is a directory
+ BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at (eval 5) line 129.
+
+Probably about six errors like this. I worked around this by removing the files and directories it complained about.
+Finally it finished.
+
+> As of version 2.0, ikiwiki enables usedirs by default. See
+> [[tips/switching_to_usedirs]] for details. --[[Joey]]
+
+>> I read the config wrong. I was thinking that it showed the defaults even though commented out
+>> (like ssh configs do). I fixed that part. --JeremyReed
+
+My next problem was that ikiwiki start letting me edit without any password authentication. It used to prompt
+me for a password but now just goes right into the "editing" mode.
+The release notes for 2.0 say password auth is still on by default.
+
+> It sounds like you have the anonok plugin enabled?
+
+>> Where is the default documented? My config doesn't have it uncommented.
+
+The third problem is that when editing my textbox is empty -- no content.
+
+This is using my custom rcs.pm which has been used thousands of times.
+
+> Have you rebuilt the cgi wrapper since you upgraded ikiwiki? AFAIK I
+> fixed a bug that could result in the edit box always being empty back in
+> version 2.3. The only other way it could happen is if ikiwiki does not
+> have saved state about the page that it's editing (in .ikiwiki/index).
+
+>> Rebuilt it several times. Now that I think of it, I think my early problem of having
+>> no content in the textbox was before I rebuilt the cgi. And after I rebuilt the whole webpage was empty.
+
+Now I regenerated my ikiwiki.cgi again (no change to my configuration,
+and I just get an empty HTML page when attempting editing or "create".
+
+> If the page is completly empty then ikiwiki is crashing before it can
+> output anything, though this seems unlikely. Check the webserver logs.
+
+Now I see it created directories for my data. I fixed that by setting
+usedirs (I see that is in the release notes for 2.0) and rerunning ikiwiki --setup
+but I still have empty pages for editing (no textbox no html at all).
+
+> Is IkiWiki crashing? If so, it would probably leave error text in the apache logs. --[[TaylorKillian]]
+
+>> Not using apache. Nothing useful in logs other thn the HTTP return codes are "0" and bytes is "-"
+>> on the empty ikiwiki.cgi output (should say " 200 " followed by bytes).
+
+>>> You need to either figure out what your web server does with stderr
+>>> from cgi programs, or run ikiwiki.cgi at the command line with an
+>>> appropriate environment so it thinks it's being called from a web
+>>> server, so you can see how it's failing. --[[Joey]]
+
+(I am posting this now, but will do some research and post some more.)
+
+Is there any webpage with upgrade steps?
+
+> Users are expected to read [[news]], which points out any incompatible
+> changes or cases where manual action is needed.
+
+>> I read it but read the usedirs option wrong :(.
+>> Also it appears to be missing the news from between 1.40 to 2.0 unless they dont' exist.
+>> If they do exist maybe they have release notes I need?
+
+>>> All the old ones are in the NEWS file. --[[Joey]]
+
+--JeremyReed
+
+My followup: I used a new ikiwiki.setup based on the latest version. But no changes for me.
+
+Also I forgot to mention that do=recentchanges works good for me. It uses my
+rcs_recentchanges in my rcs perl module.
+
+The do=prefs does nothing though -- just a blank webpage.
+
+> You need to figure out why ikiwiki is crashing. The webserver logs should
+> tell you.
+
+I also set verbose => 1 and running ikiwiki --setup was verbose, but no changes in running CGI.
+I was hoping for some output.
+
+I am guessing that my rcs perl module stopped working on the upgrade. I didn't notice any release notes
+on changes to revision control modules. Has something changed? I will also look.
+
+> No, the rcs interface has not needed to change in a long time. Also,
+> nothing is done with the rcs for do=prefs.
+
+>> Thanks. I also checked differences between 1.40 Rcs plugins and didn't notice anything significant.
+
+--JeremyReed
+
+Another Followup: I created a new ikiwiki configuration and did the --setup to
+create an entirely different website. I have same problem there. No prompt for password
+and empty webpage when using the cgi.
+I never upgraded any perl modules so maybe a new perl module is required but I don't see any errors so I don't know.
+
+The only errors I see when building and installing ikiwiki are:
+
+ Can't exec "otl2html": No such file or directory at IkiWiki/Plugin/otl.pm line 66.
+
+ gettext 0.14 too old, not updating the pot file
+
+I don't use GNU gettext on here.
+
+I may need to revert back to my old ikiwiki install which has been used to thousands of times (with around
+1000 rcs commits via ikiwiki).
-> OK, thanks, I don't quite know what was happening before but it seems to be working right now.
-> --[[Chris]]
+--JeremyReed
-* I wish there was a mailing list, much easier for this sort of stuff than this, apart from
-anything else I get to use a decent editor.
+I downgraded to version 1.40 (that was what I had before I wrote wrong above).
+Now ikiwiki is working for me again (but using 1.40). I shouldn't have tested on production system :)
+
+--JeremyReed
----
# Excellent - how do I translate a TWiki site?
> format. Another option would be writing a ikiwiki plugin to support the
> TWiki format. --[[Joey]]
+> Jamey Sharp and I have a set of scripts in progress to convert other wikis to ikiwiki, including history, so that we can migrate a few of our wikis. We already have support for migrating MoinMoin wikis to ikiwiki, including conversion of the entire history to Git. We used this to convert the [XCB wiki](http://xcb.freedesktop.org/wiki/) to ikiwiki; until we finalize the conversion and put the new wiki in place of the old one, you can browse the converted result at <http://xcb.freedesktop.org/ikiwiki>. We already plan to add support for TWiki (including history, since you can just run parsecvs on the TWiki RCS files to get Git), so that we can convert the [Portland State Aerospace Society wiki](http://psas.pdx.edu) (currently in Moin, but with much of its history in TWiki, and with many of its pages still in TWiki format using Jamey's TWiki format for MoinMoin).
+>
+> Our scripts convert by way of HTML, using portions of the source wiki's code to render as HTML (with some additional code to do things like translate MoinMoin's `\[[TableOfContents]]` to ikiwiki's `\[[toc ]]`), and then using a modified [[cpan HTML::WikiConverter]] to turn this into markdown and ikiwiki. This produces quite satisfactory results, apart from things that don't have any markdown equivalent and thus remain HTML, such as tables and definition lists. Conversion of the history occurs by first using another script we wrote to translate MoinMoin history to Git, then using our git-map script to map a transformation over the Git history.
+>
+> We will post the scripts as soon as we have them complete enough to convert our wikis.
+>
+> -- [[JoshTriplett]]
+
+>> Thanks for an excellent Xmas present, I will appreciate the additional
+>> users this will help switch to ikiwiki! --[[Joey]]
+
----
-# OpenID
+# LaTeX support?
+
+Moved to [[todo/latex]] --[[Joey]]
+
+----
-I just figured I'd edit something on the page with my OpenID, since you've implemented it! --*[Kyle](http://kitenet.net/~kyle/)*=
+# Using with CVS?
-> Kyle, If you like openid, I can switch your personal wiki over to use your openid. --[[Joey]]
+Moved to a [[todo_item|todo/CVS_backend]]. --[[JoshTriplett]]
-----
+----
-# ACL
+# Show differences before saving page?
-How about adding ACL? So that you can control which users are allowed
-to read, write certain pages. The moinmoin wiki has that, and it is
-something, that I think is very valuable.
+Moved to the existing [[todo_item|todo/preview_changes]]. --[[JoshTriplett]]
-> ikiwiki currently has only the most rudimentary access controls: pages
-> can be locked, or unlocked and only the admin can edit locked pages. That
-> could certianly be expanded on, although it's not an area that I have an
-> overwhelming desire to work on myself right now. Patches appreciated and
-> I'll be happy to point you in the right directions.. --[[Joey]]
+----
->> I'm really curious how you'd suggest implementing ACLs on reading a page.
->> It seems to me the only way you could do it is .htaccess DenyAll or something,
->> and then route all page views through ikiwiki.cgi. Am I missing something?
->> --[[Ethan]]
+# Max submit size?
->>> Or you could just use apache or whatever and set up the access controls
->>> there. Of course, that wouldn't integrate very well with the wiki,
->>> unless perhaps you decided to use http basic authentication and the
->>> httpauth plugin for ikiwiki that integrates with that.. [[--Joey]]
+Any setting for limiting how many kilobytes can be submitted via the "edit" form?
+-- [[JeremyReed]]
->>>> Which would rule out openid, or other fun forms of auth. And routing all access
->>>> through the CGI sort of defeats the purpose of ikiwiki. --[[Ethan]]
+>>> See [[todo/fileupload]] for an idea on limiting page size. --[[Joey]]
----
-Some questions about the RecentChanges function. -- Ethan
+# Access Keys
+
+Would anyone else find this a valuable addition. In oddmuse and instiki (the only other
+wiki engines I am currently using, the edit, home, and submit link tags have an
+accesskey attribute. I find it nice not to have to resort to the mouse for those
+actions. However, it may not be something everyone appreciates. Any thoughts?
+--[Mazirian](http://mazirian.com)
-> (Moved to [[todo/recentchanges]] --[[Joey]])
+> Maybe, although it would need to take the critisism at
+> <http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/forms/accesskey.html> into account.
+
+>> Thank you for that link. Given that the edit link is the first thing you tab to
+>> in the current layout, I guess it isn't all that necessary. I have had a
+>> a user complaint recently that Alt-e in oddmuse was overriding his access
+>> to the browser menu.
----
-Also, I'd like to request another template parameter which is just
-$config{url}. That way you won't have to hard-code the URL of the wiki into
-the template. -- Ethan
+# Editing the style sheet.
+
+It would be nice to be able to edit the stylesheet by means of the cgi. Or is this possible? I wasn't able to achieve it.
+Ok, that's my last 2 cents for a while. --[Mazirian](http://mazirian.com)
+
+> I don't support editing it, but if/when ikiwiki gets [[todo/fileupload]] support,
+> it'll be possible to upload a style sheet. (If .css is in the allowed
+> extensions list.. no idea how safe that would be, a style sheet is
+> probably a great place to put XSS attacks and evil javascript that would
+> be filtered out of any regular page in ikiwiki). --[[Joey]]
-> That's already available in the BASEURL parameter. --[[Joey]]
+>> I hadn't thought of that at all. It's a common feature and one I've
+>> relied on safely, because the wikis I am maintaining at the moment
+>> are all private and restricted to trusted users. Given that the whole
+>> point of ikiwiki is to be able to access and edit via the shell as
+>> well as the web, I suppose the features doesn't add a lot. By the
+>> way, the w3m mode is brilliant. I haven't tried it yet, but the idea
+>> is great.
----
-# Canonical feed location?
+# Should not create an existing page
+
+This might be a bug, but will discuss it here first.
+Clicking on an old "?" or going to a create link but new Markdown content exists, should not go into "create" mode, but should do a regular "edit".
+
+> I belive that currently it does a redirect to the new static web page.
+> At least that's the intent of the code. --[[Joey]]
+
+>> Try at your site: `?page=discussion&from=index&do=create`
+>> It brings up an empty textarea to start a new webpage -- even though it already exists here. --reed
+
+>>> Ah, right. Notice that the resulting form allows saving the page as
+>>> discussion, or users/discussion, but not index/discussion, since this
+>>> page already exists. If all the pages existed, it would do the redirect
+>>> thing. --[[Joey]]
+
+----
+
+# User database tools?
+
+Any tool to view user database?
+
+Any tool to edit the user database?
+
+> No, but it's fairly easy to write such tools in perl. For example, to
+> list all users in the user database:
+
+ joey@kodama:~/src/joeywiki/.ikiwiki>perl -le 'use Storable; my $userinfo=Storable::retrieve("userdb"); print $_ foreach keys %$userinfo'
+ http://joey.kitenet.net/
+ foo
+
+> To list each user's email address:
+
+ joey@kodama:~/src/joeywiki/.ikiwiki>perl -le 'use Storable; my $userinfo=Storable::retrieve("userdb"); print $userinfo->{$_}->{email} foreach keys %$userinfo'
+
+ joey@kitenet.net
+
+> Editing is simply a matter of changing values and calling Storable::store().
+> I've not written actual utilities to do this yet because I've only needed
+> to do it rarely, and the data I've wanted has been different each time.
+> --[[Joey]]
+
+----
+
+# Spaces in WikiLinks?
+
+Hello Joey,
+
+I've just switched from ikiwiki 2.0 to ikiwiki 2.2 and I'm really surprised
+that I can't use the spaces in WikiLinks. Could you please tell me why the spaces
+aren't allowed in WikiLinks now?
+
+My best regards,
+
+--[[Paweł|ptecza]]
+
+> See [[bugs/Spaces_in_link_text_for_ikiwiki_links]]
+
+----
+
+# Build in OpenSolaris?
+
+Moved to [[bugs/build_in_opensolaris]] --[[Joey]]
+
+----
+
+# Various ways to use Subversion with ikiwiki
+
+I'm playing around with various ways that I can use subversion with ikiwiki.
+
+* Is it possible to have ikiwiki point to a subversion repository which is on a different server? The basic checkin/checkout functionality seems to work but there doesn't seem to be any way to make the post-commit hook work for a non-local server?
+
+> This is difficult to do since ikiwiki's post-commit wrapper expects to
+> run on a machine that contains both the svn repository and the .ikiwiki
+> state directory. However, with recent versions of ikiwiki, you can get
+> away without running the post-commit wrapper on commit, and all you lose
+> is the ability to send commit notification emails.
-Any way to use `inline` but point the feed links to a different feed on the
-same site? I have news in news/*, a news archive in news.mdwn, and the
-first few news items on index.mdwn, but I don't really want two separate
-feeds, one with all news and one with the latest few articles; I'd rather
-point the RSS feed links of both to the same feed. (Which one, the one
-with all news or the one with the latest news only, I don't know yet.)
+* Is it possible / sensible to have ikiwiki share a subversion repository with other data (either completely unrelated files or another ikiwiki instance)? This works in part but again the post-commit hook seems problematic.
-> Not currently. It could be implemented, or you could just turn off the
-> rss feed for the index page, and manually put in a wikilink to the news
-> page and rss feed. --[[Joey]]
+--[[AdamShand]]
->> That wouldn't use the same style for the RSS and Atom links, and it
->> wouldn't embed the feed link into `<head>` so that browsers can automatically
->> find it.
+> Sure, see ikiwiki's subversion repository for example of non-wiki files
+> in the same repo. If you have two wikis in one repository, you will need
+> to write a post-commit script that calls the post-commit wrappers for each
+> wiki.
sipb-www / ikiwiki.git / blobdiff