TWiki Collaborative Editing System

TWiki Version

Tested with TWiki 20030201. Current TWiki release is 02 Sept 2004, there could be small differences in install procedure below.

Overview

TWiki is a kind of Wiki; that is, it's a program that allows groups people to collaborate on web pages easily, without technical knowledge.

Installation

Install StandardApache.

Install rcs:

sudo apt-get install rcs

Set up DNS for your TWiki's virtual host; in this example it will be called twiki.example.org.

Create a twiki user:

sudo adduser --system --group --no-create-home twiki

Create a directory for the virtual host:

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/twiki.example.org/twiki
sudo mkdir /var/www/twiki.example.org/htdocs
sudo mkdir /var/www/twiki.example.org/logs

Download TWiki20030201. Install it like this:

cd /var/www/twiki.example.org/twiki
sudo tar zxf /path/to/TWiki20030201.tar.gz
cd ..
sudo chown -R apache.apache twiki
sudo chmod -R 755 twiki
sudo mv twiki/data twiki-data
sudo mv twiki/templates twiki-templates
sudo chown -R twiki.twiki twiki-templates
sudo rm twiki/index.html

Create a virtual host file in /usr/local/apache/conf/vhost, using /usr/local/apache/conf/vhost/twiki.example.org as a template. Add a line to /usr/local/apache/conf/virtual_hosts to include the virtual host file:

include conf/vhost/twiki.example.org

Edit /var/www/twiki.example.org/twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg as follows:

$wikiHomeUrl      = "http://twiki.example.org/twiki";
$defaultUrlHost   = "http://twiki.example.org";
$pubDir           = "/var/www/twiki.example.org/twiki/pub";
$templateDir      = "/var/www/twiki.example.org/twiki-templates";
$dataDir          = "/var/www/twiki.example.org/twiki-data";
$scriptUrlPath    = "/bin";

And optionally (to set the name that TWiki will use to refer to itself):

$wikiToolName     = "ExampleWiki";

In twiki/bin, rename .htaccess.txt to .htaccess, and edit as follows:

#SetHandler cgi-script
AuthUserFile /var/www/twiki.example.org/twiki-data/.htpasswd
ErrorDocument 401 http://twiki.example.org/bin/oops/TWiki/TWikiRegistration?template=oopsauth

In /var/www/twiki.example.org/twiki-data/TWiki:

sudo mv TWikiRegistrationPub.txt TWikiRegistration.txt
sudo mv TWikiRegistrationPub.txt,v TWikiRegistration.txt,v

Restart Apache. Load http://twiki.example.org in a browser, and register as a user on your TWiki.

Edit the TWikiAdminGroup topic in the Main web to include users with system administrator status.

Edit the TWikiPreferences topic in the TWiki web so that only the system administrators can change that topic. Also set WIKIWEBMASTER to the webmaster's email address. If you don't have a mail server called mail.example.org, set SMTPMAILHOST accordingly.

Edit the WebPreferences topic in each web, if necessary, to set additional access privileges.

speedycgi - performance improvement

installation

download source, currently at http://daemoninc.com/SpeedyCGI/CGI-SpeedyCGI-2.22.tar.gz

build and install it with (answer no to mod_speedycgi, unless you need it):
perl Makefile.PL && make && make test && make install

change first line of /var/www/twiki.example.org/twiki/bin/view
to #!/usr/local/bin/speedy -- -gopenorg
which will run view script (used for viewing of all twiki pages) with speedycgi, under group openorg. See documentation of speedycgi for more on its concept of groups.

performance comparison

before:

toni@mast:~$ openload http://www.open-organizations.org 5
URL: http://www.open-organizations.org:80/
Clients: 5
Total TPS:   0.39
Avg. Response time: 12.000 sec.
Max Response time:  13.953 sec
Total Requests:      15
Total Errors:         0

after (with speedycgi):

toni@mast:~$ openload http://www.open-organizations.org 5
URL: http://www.open-organizations.org:80/
Clients: 5
Total TPS:   0.74
Avg. Response time:  6.146 sec.
Max Response time:  11.436 sec
Total Requests:      15
Total Errors:         0

I run those tests few times, and reponse times with speedycgi consistently showed roughly the same improvement, that of halving the response time.

further read

• twiki developers on it: http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/SpeedyCGI
• speedyCGI home page: http://daemoninc.com/SpeedyCGI/