• Name: Tim Delaney
• Email:
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• Country: USA
• City: Utah
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I'm doing my very first TWiki install! I'm using SuSE 10 and Apache 2. SusE's Apache configuration wizard has been a bust IMHO and I'm worried that they've done something non-standard with Apache.Then we'll see if I'm too lazy to post what I find (wink).

Follow my progress!

We'll see how easily you are amused.

Standard Installation Step 1

Add TWiki config to httpd.conf. My httpd.conf warns me not to modify it directly or risk upgrade issues in the future. httpd.conf includes /etc/apache2/default-server.conf which then includes Include /etc/apache2/conf.d/*.conf. Ah, ha! All I need to do is write a TWiki.conf, slap it in conf.d and all will be well.

# Tim's attempt at a TWiki config file for Apache 2 on SuSE 10. 
# Your results may vary.
#
# Assumptions
#
# * document root is /srv/www/htdocs (twiki docs like to assume
#       /home/httpd)
# * twiki software is copied to /srv/www/htdocs/twiki (twiki docs
#       like to assme /home/httpd/twiki)

#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Map the URL for the twiki scripts to the real place in the
# file system. (q: does twiki assume you always map /twiki/bin/?)
ScriptAlias /twiki/bin/ "/srv/www/htdocs/twiki/bin/"

#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Map the URL for the root of your twiki pages to the real place
# in the file system. The trailing '/' tells the server not to
# serve up the twiki root directory itself.
Alias /twiki/ "/srv/www/htdocs/twiki/"

#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Let the server know that this twiki file system directory holds 
# scripts, not regular text files.
<Directory "/srv/www/htdocs/twiki/bin">
    Options +ExecCGI -Indexes
    SetHandler cgi-script
    AllowOverride All
    Allow from all
</Directory>

#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Let the server knows that this twiki file system directory holds
# web-viewable information.
<Directory "/srv/www/htdocs/twiki/pub">
    Options FollowSymLinks +Includes
    AllowOverride None
    Allow from all
</Directory>

#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# TWiki keeps public web pages and private files in the same tree
# in the file sytem. Tell the server not to serve up the private
# stuff as web pages.
<Directory "/srv/www/htdocs/twiki/data">
    deny from all
</Directory>
<Directory "/srv/www/htdocs/twiki/lib">
    deny from all
</Directory>
<Directory "/srv/www/htdocs/twiki/templates">
    deny from all
</Directory>

Step 2: Edit the Configuration Files

Saved the original config then changed the live copy for my environment then restarted everything. TWiki wouldn't come up. A quick diff showed gobldygook in the config files and a sheepish looking cat was sitting next to my keyboard. Pulled out the junk and now TWiki comes up fine.

Step 3: Set File Permissions

Don't know why scripts should be readable or executable by everybody. Shouldn't it just be the web server user account?

testenv is executable by anyone on the web but bleeds more info than I'd like. Gotta remember to put testenv somewhere else or something...

Smells like security

This is a private wiki for now, at least. I've setup basic auth on my apache server at the root of the TWiki directory tree. Using a silly name and password because I don't care about that whole clear-text-password issue for now. Will likely solve it eventually by doing https w/apache.

Registering my first wiki user

Not! CAn't register without email client setup. I'm worried about setting up sendmail and finding that I get hacked and my ISP gets peeved when some nefarious fellow uses my twiki sendmail for spam. The docs on setting up email are iffy about what I should do. Searching twiki.org for 'sendmail' or 'prefix' results in a bunch of pages about how email in general works, not how to set it up in twiki. I think twiki.org is letting people use space as a general knowledge repository. Nice thing to do, but not so nice when you're confused and find a bunch of superfulous stuff.

original page

My Links

• WelcomeGuest to learn TWiki
• Sandbox web to try out TWiki
• TimDelaneySandbox just for me

Personal Preferences (details in TWikiVariables)

• Show tool-tip topic info on mouse-over of WikiWord links, on or off: (see details in TWikiPreferences)
  • Set LINKTOOLTIPINFO = off
• Horizontal size of text edit box:
  • Set EDITBOXWIDTH = 70
• Vertical size of text edit box:
  • Set EDITBOXHEIGHT = 22
• Style of text edit box. width: 99% for full window width (default), width: auto to disable.
  • Set EDITBOXSTYLE = width: 99%

Related topics

• ChangePassword
• TWikiPreferences has site-level preferences of TWiki.
• WebPreferences has preferences of the TWiki.Main web.
• TWikiUsers has a list of other TWiki users.