TWiki Installation Guide
The following is installation instructions for the TWiki Dakar production release on an Apache web server on Linux. Visit
TWiki:TWiki.InstallingTWiki for the latest updates to this guide and supplemental information for installing or upgrading TWiki, including notes on installing TWiki on other platforms.
Preparing to install TWiki
Before attempting to install TWiki, you are encouraged to review the
TWiki:TWiki.AdminSkillsAssumptions. This guide assumes the person installing TWiki has, at a minimum, basic knowledge of server administration and cgi script management on the system on which TWiki is to be installed. While it is possible to install TWiki with ftp access alone (for example, on a hosted site), it is tricky and may require additional support from your hosting service (for example, in setting file ownership).
While this installation guide specifically describes installation on an Apache web server on Linux, TWiki should be fine with any web server and OS that meet the
system requirements. For additional notes on installing TWiki on other systems, see
TWiki:TWiki/InstallingTWiki#OtherPlatforms.
If you are installing TWiki without Unix/Linux root (administrator) privileges (for example, on a hosted domain), see
Notes on Installing TWiki on Non-Root Account for supplemental instructions to the basic steps presented below.
If you need help, ask a question in the
TWiki:Support web or on
TWiki:Codev.TWikiIRC (irc.freenode.net, channel #twiki)
Basic Installation
- Download the TWiki distribution from http://TWiki.org/download.html.
- Make a directory for the installation and unpack the distribution in it.
- Make sure the user that runs CGI scripts on your system can read and write all files in the distribution.
Detailed instructions on file permissions are beyond the scope of this guide, but in general:
- During installation and configuration, the CGI user needs to be able to read and write everything in the distribution,
- Once installation and configuration is complete, the CGI user needs write access to everything under the
data
and pub
directories and to lib/LocalSite.cfg
. Everything else should be read-only.
- Everybody else should be denied access to everything, always.
- 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 somewhere else, change the path to Perl in the first line of each script in the twiki/bin
directory.
Some systems require a special extension on perl scripts (e.g. .cgi
or .pl
). If necessary, rename all files in twiki/bin
(i.e. rename view
to view.pl
etc). If you do this, make sure you set the ScriptSuffix
option in configure
(Step 6).
- Create the file
/twiki/bin/LocalLib.cfg
.
There is a template for this file in /twiki/bin/LocalLib.cfg.txt
.
The file must contain a setting for $twikiLibPath
, which must point to the absolute file path of your twiki/lib
e.g. /home/httpd/twiki/lib
.
If you need to install additional CPAN modules, but can't update the main Perl installation files on the server, you can set $CPANBASE
to point to your personal CPAN install. Don't forget that the webserver user has to be able to read those files as well.
- Configure the webserver so you can execute the
bin/configure
script from your browser.
- If you are unsure about how to do this on your system, see TWiki:TWiki.InstallingTWiki#OtherPlatforms for links to information about various server setups. There is an example Apache
httpd.conf
file in twiki_httpd_conf.txt
at the root of the package. This file also contains advice on securing your installation. There's also a script called tools/rewriteshebang.pl
to help you in fixing up the shebang lines in your CGI scripts.
- Run the
configure
script from your browser (i.e. enter http://yourdomain/twiki/bin/configure
into your browser address bar) and resolve any errors or warnings it tells you about.
When you run configure
for the first time, remember to first set the General Path Settings
, save these settings, and then return to configure
to continue configuration.
You now have a basic, unauthenticated installation running. At this point you can just point your Web browser at
http://yourdomain.com/twiki/bin/view
and start TWiki-ing away!
Next Steps (optional)
Once you have TWiki installed and running, you might consider the following optional steps for setting up and customizing your TWiki site. Many of the references below refer to topics within your TWiki installation. For example,
TWiki.TWikiSkins
refers to the
TWikiSkins
topic in your TWiki web. If not available locally, you can find these topics in the on-line reference copy of
TWiki Release 4.0.
Enable Authentication of Users
This step provides for site access control and user activity tracking on your TWiki site.
This is particularly important for sites that are publicly accessible on the web. This guide describes only the most common of several possible authentication setups for TWiki and is suitable for public web sites. For information about other setups, see
TWiki.TWikiUserAuthentication
, and
TWiki:TWiki.TWikiUserAuthenticationSupplement.
These are the steps for enabling "Template Login" which asks for a username and password in a web page, and processes them using the Apache 'htpasswd' password manager. Users can log in and log out.
- Under the
Security Settings
pane of configure
:
- Select
TWiki::Client::TemplateLogin
for {LoginManager}
.
- Select
TWiki::Users::HtPasswdUser
for {PasswordManager}
.
- Save your
configure
settings.
- Create an empty file called
.htpasswd
in the data
directory.
- Register yourself using the
TWiki.TWikiRegistration
topic.
Check that the password manager recognizes the new user. Check that a new line with the username and encrypted password is added to the data/.htpasswd
file. If not, you probably got a path wrong, or the permissions may not allow the webserver user to write to that file.
- Edit a topic (by clicking on the
Edit
link at beginning or end of topic) to check if authentication works.
- Edit the
Main/TWikiAdminGroup
topic to include users with system administrator status. Additional instructions are provided in that topic.
This is a very important step, as users in this group can access all topics, independent of TWiki access controls.
- Clear admin notes: Some pages are meant to be customized after choice of authentication - check and update these topics (remove notice):
Main.TWikiAdminGroup
, TWiki.ChangePassword
, TWiki.ResetPassword
, and TWiki.ChangeEmailAddress
.
You are strongly encouraged to read
TWiki.TWikiUserAuthentication
,
TWiki:TWiki/TWikiUserAuthenticationSupplement, and
TWiki:TWiki/SecuringTWikiSite
for further information about managing users and security of your TWiki site.
Set TWiki Preferences
Preferences for customizing many aspects of TWiki are set simply by editing a special topic with TWiki.
- Edit
TWiki.TWikiPreferences
. Read through it and set any additional settings you think you might need. (You can click the 'Edit' button near the top to edit the settings in place).
- Alternately, you can copy any settings or variables that you want to customize from
TWiki.TWikiPreferences
and paste them into Main.TWikiPreferences
. This will protect your local customizations from being overwritten in later upgrades. See notes at top of TWiki.TWikiPreferences
for more information.
Enable Email Notification
Each TWiki web has an automatic email notification service that sends you an email with links to all of the topics modified since the last alert. To enable this service:
- Confirm the Mail and Proxies settings in the Configure interface.
- Confirm the Email and Proxy Server Settings in the
TWikiPreferences
topic.
- Setup a cron job (or equivalent) to call the
bin/mailnotify
script as described in the TWiki.MailerContrib
topic.
You can generate a listing manually, or on an automated schedule, of visits to individual pages, on a per web basis. For information on setting up this feature, see the
TWiki.TWikiSiteTools
topic.
Enable Localisation
TWiki now supports displaying of national (non-ascii) characters and presentation of basic interface elements in different languages. To enable these features, see the
Localisation
section of
configure
. For more information about these features, see
TWiki:TWiki.InternationalizationSupplement.
Install Plugins
TWiki:Plugins is an extensive library of Plugins for TWiki, that enhance functionality in a huge number of ways. A few plugins are pre-installed in the TWiki distribution. For more information on these, see
TWiki.InstalledPlugins
. Installation instructions for the other plugins can be found in the plugin topics on TWiki.org. Additional documenation on TWiki plugins can be found at
TWiki:TWiki.TWikiPluginsSupplement.
Customize your TWiki!
The real power of TWiki lies in it's flexibility to be customized to meet your needs. A good place to start for exploring what's possible is
TWiki:TWiki/TWikiAdminCookBook which offers tips and tricks for customizing your TWiki site. Many of these are appropriate to implement immediately after installing TWiki and before adding content so now's a good time to look at these. If you would like to customize the look of your TWiki, see
TWiki:TWiki.TWikiSkinsSupplement.
Troubleshooting
The first step is to re-run the
configure
script and make sure you have resolved all errors, and are satisfied that you understand any warnings.
Failing that, please check the topics listed below which include important tips for HP-UX, Solaris, OS/390, and many other platforms.
It is also advisable to review
TWiki:Codev/KnownIssuesOfTWiki04x00x00.
If you need help, ask a question in the
TWiki:Support web or on
TWiki:Codev/TWikiIRC (irc.freenode.net, channel #twiki)
Appendixes
TWiki System Requirements
Low client and server base requirements are core features that keep TWiki widely deployable, particularly across a range of browser platforms and versions.
Server Requirements
TWiki is written in Perl 5, uses a number of shell commands, and requires
RCS (Revision Control System), a GNU Free Software package. TWiki is developed in a basic Linux/Apache environment. It also works with Microsoft Windows, and should have no problem on any other platform that meets the requirements.
Resource | Required Server Environment * |
Perl | 5.005_03 or higher (5.8.4 or higher is recommended) |
RCS | 5.7 or higher (including GNU diff ) Optional, TWiki includes a pure perl implementation of RCS that can be used instead (although it's slower) |
GNU diff | GNU diff 2.7 or higher is required when not using the all-Perl RcsLite. Install on PATH if not included with RCS (check version with diff -v ) Must be the version used by RCS, to avoid problems with binary attachments - RCS may have hard-coded path to diff |
Other external programs | fgrep, egrep |
Cron/scheduler | • Unix: cron • Windows: cron equivalents |
Web server | Apache is well supported; for information on other servers, see TWiki:TWiki.InstallingTWiki#OtherWebServers. |
Required CPAN Modules
The following Perl
CPAN modules are used by TWiki:
Module | Preferred version |
Algorithm::Diff (included) | |
CGI::Carp | >=1.26 |
Config | >=0 |
Cwd | >=3.05 |
Data::Dumper | >=2.121 |
Error (included) | |
File::Copy | >=2.06 |
File::Find | >=1.05 |
File::Spec | >=3.05 |
FileHandle | >=2.01 |
IO::File | >=1.10 |
Text::Diff (included) | |
Time::Local | >=1.11 |
Optional CPAN Modules
The following Perl modules may be used by TWiki:
Module | Preferred version | Description |
CGI::Cookie | >=1.24 | Used for session support |
CGI::Session | >=3.95 | Used for session support |
Digest::base | | |
Digest::SHA1 | | |
Jcode | | Used for I18N support with perl 5.6 |
Locale::Maketext::Lexicon | >=0 | Used for I18N support |
Net::SMTP | >=2.29 | Used for sending mail |
Unicode::Map | | Used for I18N support with perl 5.6 |
Unicode::Map8 | | Used for I18N support with perl 5.6 |
Unicode::MapUTF8 | | Used for I18N support with perl 5.6 |
Unicode::String | | Used for I18N support with perl 5.6 |
URI | | Used for configure |
Most of them will probably already be available in your installation. You can check version numbers with the
configure
script, or if you're still trying to get to that point, check from the command line like this:
perl -e 'use FileHandle; print $FileHandle::VERSION."\n"'
Client Requirements
The TWiki standard installation has relatively low browser requirements:
- HTML 3.2 compliant
- Cookies, if persistent sessions are required
CSS and Javascript are used in most skins, although there is a low-fat skin (Classic skin) available that minimises these requirements. Some skins will require more recent releases of browsers. The default skin (Pattern) is tested on IE 6, Safari, and Mozilla 5.0 based browsers (such as Firefox).
You can easily select a balance of browser capability versus look and feel. Try the installed skins at
TWiki/TWikiSkinBrowser
and more at
TWiki:Plugins.SkinPackage.
Important note about TWiki Plugins
- Plugins can require just about anything - browser-specific functions, stylesheets (CSS), Java applets, cookies, specific Perl modules,... - check the individual Plugin specs.
- Note: Plugins included in the TWiki distribution do not add requirements, except for the CommentPlugin which requires Perl 5.6.1.
Notes on Installing TWiki on Non-Root Account
The following supplemental notes to the
Basic Installation instructions apply to installing 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.
Referring to the
Basic Installation steps presented above:
- Step 2: If you cannot unpack the TWiki distribution directly in your installation directory, you can unpack the distribution on your local PC and then manually create the directory structure on your host server and upload the files as follows:
- 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
directory.)
- Note: Don't worry if you are not able to put 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 configure the twiki/bin/setlib.cfg
file (done in Step 2).
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/locale | language files | dir secure from public access | /home/smith/twiki/locale |
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 |
twiki/tools | TWiki utlilities | dir secure from public access | /home/smith/twiki/tools |
- Step 3: Files in the pub directory must be readable as a url. This means that directory permissions should be set to
755
(or 775
) and file permissions should be set to 644
(or 664
). If you can run a chmod
command, you can accomplish this in two quick steps by running these commands from the root direct:
-
chmod -R 755 pub
-
chmod 644 `find pub -type f -print`
- In addition, you should create a
.htaccess
file in the pub directory, using the template included in the root level of the distribution entitled pub-htaccess.txt
.
- Note: This setup does not provide for absolute security for TWiki attachments. For more information, see TWiki:Codev.SecuringYourTWiki.
- Step 6: In order to run the configure script, create a file called
.htaccess
in the bin directory that includes the following single line: SetHandler cgi-script
. This informs the server to treat all the perl scripts in the bin directory as scripts.
For additional information about installing TWiki on a hosted accounts, see
TWiki:TWiki.InstallingTWiki#WebHostingSites