Question

Hi, I have been trying for the past fortnight to get this twiki installation going, but I haven't had much success. the testenv script doesn't report anything wrong except that the template directory is writeable by my user, that the diff I have is not GNU diff, and that my scripts are not running as user nobody.

I cant seem to change any of these user settings, ie any of the chown commands. I get a permission denied error all the time.

I am installing this locally, and I do not have root access, but you need root access to change the ownership of files!

Whenever I try to save an edited page I get the following error: Attention

Topic save error

During save of file Main an error was found by the version control system. Please notify your TWiki administrator. /usr/bin/ci -q -l -m'none' -t-none -w'guest' '/user/sswinsb2/public_html/twiki/data/Main/WebHome.txt' 2>&1 rcs error: unknown option: -M rcs usage: rcs -{ae}logins -Afile -{blu}[rev] -cstring -{iLU} -{nNs}name[:rev] -orange -t[file] -Vn file ... rcs aborted Go back in your browser and save your changes locally.

What does this mean?? Please help!

Environment

-- SteveSwinsburg - 22 Feb 2005

Answer

OSF1 is Compaq Alpha, aka Tru64, a true UNIX. A few years ago I tried to run twiki on one and ran into a series of problems. They weren't insurmountable but it did require installing a bunch of GNU utilities to use instead of the native Tru64 ones. Without root access it is even more complicated, though still possible I think. The Tru64 managers mailing list is high quality and much useful help is to be gained there, although they are impatient with those who don't do their homework.

If you don't want to get into the big project of installing GNU utilities into your home directory, and I'm pretty sure you don't, try using 'RcsLite', a home-grown twiki alternative to RCS. It's enabled with a one line change in lib/TWiki.cfg around line 205.

The template directory being writable is not a "twiki won't work" error. It's a security warning. Similarily the "not nobody" error won't stop you from saving edits, but it will does mean version control won't work until you change the RCS lock user (last 3 paragaphs of Step 3 in the installation guide).

The not having permissions to chmod may or may not be a show-stopper.You might be able to get save working by using chmod instead. The idea is to enable group write access, e.g:

First try chmod -R 777 twiki/*, which gives everybody full permissions to do anything they want. Then if that works, downgrade as per the TWikiInstallationGuide

good luck!

-- MattWilkie - 22 Feb 2005