TWiki Installation Guide

The following is installation instructions for the TWiki 4.1 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 different platforms, environments and web hosting sites.

If you are upgrading from a previous version of TWiki, you probably want to read TWikiUpgradeGuide instead (both this document and the TWikiUpgradeGuide are also available in the root of the distribution as HTML files)

Preparing to install TWiki

If you are upgrading from an earlier major version of TWiki such a Cairo (TWiki 3) you will need the information found in TWiki:TWiki.TWikiUpgradeGuide which includes a description of both an automated and a manual procedure. The manual procedure is probably the safest to follow but takes more time. The upgrade guide describes essential steps needed to avoid problems with locked topics.

Upgrading from a recent TWiki4 release is much simpler. Upgraders from earlier TWiki4 versions can with advantage follow the steps described in TWiki:TWiki.UpgradingTWiki04x00PatchReleases to ensure a safe upgrade without accidently overwriting customizations.

If you need help, ask a question in the TWiki:Support web or on TWiki:Codev.TWikiIRC (irc.freenode.net, channel #twiki)

1. Make a directory for the installation and unpack the distribution in it. In the rest of this document we assume this directory is called twiki.
2. 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, and the best and safest set of file and directory permissions depend on the actual server environment. For Unix/Linux see TWiki:TWiki.SettingFileAccessRightsLinuxUnix which contains scripts to setup the right file and directory access rights.
   The general rules for access rights are:
   • 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 twiki/lib/LocalSite.cfg. Everything else should be read-only.

1. 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).
2. Create the file twiki/bin/LocalLib.cfg.
   There is a template for this file in twiki/bin/LocalLib.cfg.txt.
   The file twiki/bin/LocalLib.cfg.txt 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.
3. Configure the webserver so you can execute the bin/configure script from your browser. But limit the access to either localhost, an IP address or a specific user using basic Apache authentication. You should never leave the configure script open to the public. See TWiki:TWiki.ApacheConfigGenerator which contains a tool that can generate a safe and working config file for TWiki on Apache.
   • 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.
4. 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, you can only edit the section General Path Settings. Save these settings, and then return to configure to continue configuration.
   When you return to configure you now need to setup Mail and Proxies. Especially the {WebMasterEmail}, and {SMTP}{MAILHOST} must be defined to enable TWiki to send registration emails. Many ISPs have introduced authentication when sending emails to fight spam so you may also have to set {SMTP}{Username} and {SMTP}{Password}.

Important Server Security Settings

• You should protect the configure script from general access. The configure script the tool is designed for use by administrators only and should be restricted to invocation by them only, by using the basic Apache authentication. Because of this there has not been put much effort into hardening the script. The configure script cannot save any settings once the password has been saved the first time, but the script could still be vulnerable to specially crafted field values and the script reveals many details about the webserver that you should not display in public.
• You absolutely must turn off any kind of PHP, Perl, Python, Server Side Includes etc in the pub directory. TWiki has some builtin protection which renames files with dangerous filenames by appending .txt to the filename. But this is a secondary security measure. The essential action that you must take is to turn off any possible execution of any of the attached files.
  Most Linux distributions have a default Apache installation which has PHP and server side include (SSI) enabled. The twiki_httpd_conf.txt file provided in the root of the twiki directory is an example of an Apache config file which you would normally include from httpd.conf. In many distributions this happens automatically if the file is copied to a specific directory (Example RedHat/Fedora/Centos: /etc/httpd/conf.d) and has suffix .conf. This example file shows how to protect the pub directory from executing both PHP scripts and server side includes.
  If you do not have access to the apache config files you can normally control control access by placing a file called .htaccess in the directory you want to protect. The pub-htaccess.txt file provided in the root of the twiki directory is an example of an Apache .htaccess file which protects against execusion of PHP and SSI scripts.
• Make sure that you deny access to all other twiki directories than the bin and pub directories. When you have access to the Apache config files the twiki_httpd_conf.txt file mentioned above also contains protection of these directories.
  For those that do not have access to the Apache config files a sample subdir-htaccess.txt file can be copied as .htaccess to the data, lib, locale, templates and tools directories.

The TWIki:TWiki.ApacheConfigGenerator will help you address all 3 security elements.

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.

1. Under the Security Settings pane of configure :
   1. Select TWiki::Client::TemplateLogin for {LoginManager}.
   2. Select TWiki::Users::HtPasswdUser for {PasswordManager}.
   3. Save your configure settings.
   4. 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.
2. Edit a topic (by clicking on the Edit link at beginning or end of topic) to check if authentication works.
3. 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.
4. 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:

1. Confirm the Mail and Proxies settings in the Configure interface.
2. Setup a cron job (or equivalent) to call the bin/mailnotify script as described in the TWiki.MailerContrib topic.

Enable WebStatistics

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.

Automate removal of expired sessions and lease files

Per default TWiki cleans out expired session and lease files each time any topic is viewed. This however cost performance. It is an advantage to define a negative value in configure for {Sessions}{ExpireAfter} and install let cron run the tools/tick_twiki.pl script. Read The topic TWikiScripts#tick_twiki_pl for details how to do this.

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.

Tailor New Users Home Topic

When a new users registers on your TWiki a home topic is created for him based on the TWiki/NewUserTemplate template topic. This can be tailored. It contains additional resources you can use to:

• Localise the user topic.
• Add a default ALLOWTOPICCHANGE so only the user can edit his own home topic. We do not encourage this for Intranet sites as it sends a wrong signal to new users, but it can be necessary on a public TWiki to avoid that the user topics get spammed.

Install Plugins

You activate installed plugin in the Plugins section of configure. In this section you also find a Find More Extensions button which opens an application which can install additional plugins from the TWiki.org website. If you are behind a firewall or your server has no access to the Internet it is also possible to install plugins manually. Manual installation instructions for the plugins can be found in the plugin topics on TWiki.org. Additional documenation on TWiki plugins can be found at TWiki:TWiki.TWikiPluginsSupplement.

Some plugins require that you define their settings in configure. You fill find these under the Extensions section of configure.

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.

Failing that, please check TWiki:TWiki.InstallingTWiki on TWiki.org, the supplemental documentation that help you install TWiki on different platforms, environments and web hosting sites. For example:

• For Unix or Linux, check TWiki:Codev.TWikiOnUnix and TWiki:Codev.TWikiOnLinux.
• For Windows, check the TWiki:Codev.WindowsInstallCookbook.
• For MacOS X, check TWiki:Codev.TWikiOnMacOSX.

It is also advisable to review TWiki:Codev.KnownIssuesOfTWiki04x01.

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.

<-- SMELL: Macintosh version? -->

Required CPAN Modules

The following Perl CPAN modules are used by TWiki:

Optional CPAN Modules

The following Perl modules may be used by TWiki:

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

Installing Manually Without Configure

It is highly recommended to use run configure from the browser when setting up TWiki. Configure does a lot of the hard work for you.

But there may be instances where you do not want to use configure or where configure simply won't run because of a missing dependency.

The manual steps you have to take are:

• Copy the file lib/TWiki.spec to lib/LocalSite.cfg
• Remove the comment # in front of $TWiki::cfg{DefaultUrlHost}, $TWiki::cfg{ScriptUrlPath}, $TWiki::cfg{PubUrlPath}, $TWiki::cfg{PubDir}, $TWiki::cfg{TemplateDir}, $TWiki::cfg{DataDir}, $TWiki::cfg{LocalesDir}, and $TWiki::cfg{OS} and make sure these settings have the correct values.
• Make sure to define at least these settings: $TWiki::cfg{LoginManager}, $TWiki::cfg{WebMasterEmail}, $TWiki::cfg{SMTP}{MAILHOST}, $TWiki::cfg{SMTP}{SENDERHOST}.

• Enable internationalization if needed - read TWiki:TWiki/InstallationWithI18N (supplemental documentation on TWiki.org)

• Review known issues - visit TWiki:Codev.KnownIssuesOfTWiki04x01 and fix issues that apply to you.

• • Explicit instructions for doing this are beyond the scope of this document, though there is a lot of advice on TWiki.org covering different configurations of webserver. To help you out, there's 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. Additionally, see TWiki:TWiki.ApacheConfigGenerator. There's also a script called tools/rewriteshebang.pl to help you in fixing up the shebang lines in your CGI scripts.

• • It is recommended to 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.

• • ChangePassword
  • ResetPassword
  • ChangeEmailAddress
  • TWikiRegistration fields can be customzied to the needs of your organization

Basic Installation

1. Download the TWiki distribution from http://TWiki.org/download.html.
2. Make a directory for the installation and unpack the distribution in it.
3. 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.
4. 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).
5. 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.
6. Configure the webserver so you can execute the bin/configure script from your browser.
   • Explicit instructions for doing this are beyond the scope of this document, though there is a lot of advice on TWiki.org covering different configurations of webserver. To help you out, there's 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.
7. Run the configure script from your browser, and resolve any errors or warnings it tells you about.

Next Steps

• Review TWikiPreferences settings - 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)
  • It is recommended to 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.
• Customize user home pages - read and change NewUserTemplate.
• Enable authentication - read TWikiUserAuthentication.
• Clear admin notes - some pages are meant to be customized after choice of authentication - check and update these topics (remove notice):
  • ChangePassword
  • ResetPassword
  • ChangeEmailAddress
  • TWikiRegistration fields can be customzied to the needs of your organization
  • TWikiAdminGroup
• Enable e-mail notification - read TWikiSiteTools#WebNotify to get WebChangesAlerts.
• Automate update of site statistics - read TWikiSiteTools#WebStatistics
• Automate removal of expired sessions and lease files - read TWikiScripts#tick_twiki_pl.
• Install Plugins if needed - 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. Installation instructions are included in Plugins you download from TWiki:Plugins.PluginPackage on TWiki.org.
• Review known issues - visit TWiki:Codev.KnownIssuesOfTWiki04x00x00 and fix issues that apply to you.

Troubleshooting

• The first step is to re-run the configure script and make sure you have resolved all errors, and are happy that you understand any warnings.
• TWiki:TWiki.InstallingTWiki on TWiki.org has supplemental documentation that help you install TWiki on different platforms, environments and web hosting sites.
• If you need help, ask a question in the TWiki:Support web or on TWiki:Codev.TWikiIRC (irc.freenode.net, channel #twiki)

• • Enter the URL for the bin directory, http://yourdomain.com/twiki/bin/

Aletrnative Step 1: Create & Configure the Directories for Non-Root Accounts

• • • Run the testenv script from your browser; in the Fix line you can relock all the rcs files (recommended)

1. 1. Rename file .htaccess.txt in the twiki/bin directory to .htaccess and change it to your needs. The comment at the top of the file explains what need to be done, basically replace !FILE_path_to_TWiki! and !URL_path_to_TWiki! with paths specific to your installation. For the details of how this file works, consult the HTTP server documentation (for Apache server: [1], [2]).

1. (For upgrade of TWiki I18N? sites only:) If you were using TWiki:Codev.TWikiRelease01Feb2003 support for I18N? , and are using Internet Explorer or Opera, you should re-configure your browser so that it sends URLs encoded with UTF-8 (supported since TWiki:Codev.TWikiRelease01Sep2004). If you are doing a new installation of TWiki, you can ignore this step - no browser reconfiguration is needed for TWiki Release 01-Sep-2004).
   • Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher: in Tools | Options | Advanced, check 'always send URLs as UTF-8', then close all IE windows and restart IE.
   • Opera 6.x or higher: in Preferences | Network | International Web Addresses, check 'encode all addresses with UTF-8'.
   • NOTE: This does not mean that TWiki supports UTF-8 as a site character set.

Trouble with I18N? ?

• NOTE: You will need to do the above workaround for Windows based servers (whether using Cygwin or ActiveState Perl), since Perl locales are not working on Windows as of Feb 2004.

• If you need help, ask a question in the TWiki:Support web

• Restart Apache by service httpd restart (or as appropriate to your flavor of UNIX or Linux).

• • IMPORTANT:
    • On ISP-hosted accounts (and some intranet servers), Perl CGI scripts may require a .cgi extension to run. Some systems need .pl, the regular Perl extension. Rename all twiki/bin scripts if necessary.
    • Alternatively, you might try creating a file twiki/bin/.htaccess that contains the single line SetHandler cgi-script, which tells Apache to treat all files in this directory as CGI scripts.

• Set permissions manually.
  • Set the permission of all files below twiki/data so that they are writable by user nobody. A simple way is to chmod them to -rw-rw-r-- (664) and to chown them to nobody.
  • Set the permission of the twiki/data directory and its subdirectories so that files in there are writable by user nobody. A simple way is to chmod them to drwxrwxr-x (775) and to chown them to nobody.

• • The twiki/data/*/*.txt,v RCS repository files in the installation package are locked by user nobody. If your CGI scripts are not running as user nobody, it's not possible to check in files (you'll see that the revision number won't increase after saving a topic). In this case, you need to unlock all repository files (check the RCS man pages) and lock them with a different user, such as www-data, or delete them all - new files will be automatically created the first time each topic is edited. You have two options to change ownership of the RCS lock user:
    • Run the testenv script from your browser; in the Fix line you can relock all the rcs files
    • Alternatively, run this in your shell:
      cd twiki/data
find . -name *.v~ -exec perl -pi~ -e '$. <= 10 && s/nobody:/www-data:/ ' {} ;

Step 3: Edit the Configuration Files

• Edit the file /twiki/bin/setlib.cfg
  • Set $twikiLibPath to the absolute file path of your /twiki/lib as seen by the web server.
  • Attention: Do not leave it as a relative "../lib" path or Plugins might fail to initialize properly
  • You can also edit $localPerlLibPath if you are not root and need to install additional CPAN modules, but can't update the main Perl installation files on the server. Just set this variable to the full pathname to your local lib directory, typically under your home directory.
  • Attention: If you are running TWiki on Apache 2.0 on Unix you might experience cgi scripts to hang forever. This is a known Apache 2.0 bug. See details and woraround in the setlib.cfg file.

Step 4: Internationalisation Setup (Optional)

By default, TWiki is configured to support US ASCII letters (no accents) in WikiWords, and ISO-8859-1 (Western European) characters in page contents. If that's OK for you, skip this step.

If your Wiki will be used by non-English speakers, TWiki can be configured for Internationalisation ('I' followed by 18 letters, then 'N', or I18N). Specifically, TWiki will support suitable accented characters in WikiWords (as well as languages such as Japanese or Chinese in which WikiWords do not apply), and to support virtually any character set in the contents of pages. NOTE: TWiki does not currently support UTF-8, so you are advised not to use this - however, improved UTF-8 support is under development.

To configure internationalisation suppport:

1. Edit the TWiki.cfg file's Internationalisation section to set the $useLocale parameter to 1. TWiki will now use the I18N? parameters set in the rest of this section.
2. Type the Unix/Linux command locale -a to find a suitable 'locale' for your use of TWiki. A locale that includes a dot followed by a character set is recommended, e.g. pl_PL.ISO-8859-2 for Poland. Consult your system administrator if you are not sure which locale to use.
3. In TWiki.cfg, set the $siteLocale parameter to your chosen locale, e.g. pl_PL.ISO-8859-2 for Poland.
4. Check your setup using testenv (download the latest testenv from TWiki:Support/SupportGuidelines if possible) - this provides some diagnostics for I18N? setup, and in particular checks that your locale can be used successfully.
5. If you are using Internet Explorer or Opera, configure your browser to not send URLs encoded with UTF-8
   • Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher: in Tools | Options | Advanced, uncheck 'always send URLs as UTF-8', then close all IE windows and restart IE.
   • Opera 6.x or higher: in Preferences | Network | International Web Addresses, uncheck 'encode all addresses with UTF-8'.
   • NOTE: If this configuration change is not acceptable, consider installing a TWiki beta release (19 Jan 2004 or later), which fully supports UTF-8 URLs.
6. Try out your TWiki by creating pages in the Sandbox web that use international characters in WikiWords and checking that searching, WebIndex, Ref-By and other features are working OK.

If international characters in WikiWords do not seem to work, and you are on Perl 5.6 or higher, you may need to set the TWiki.cfg parameter $localeRegexes to 0 - this disables some features but enables TWiki to work even if your system has locales that do not work. Then, set the $upperNational and $lowerNational parameters to the valid upper and lower case accented letters for your locale.

• NOTE: You will need to do the above workaround for Windows based servers (whether using Cygwin or ActiveState Perl), since Perl locales are not working on Windows as of Feb 2004.

If international characters in WikiWords aren't working, and you are on Perl 5.005 with working locales, keep $useLocale set to 1 and set $localeRegexes to 0, then set $upperNational and $lowerNational - if testenv generates the lists of characters for you, your locales are working so there is no need to set $localeRegexes to 0 in this case. See the comments in TWiki.cfg for more information.

Step 5: Configure Site-Wide Email Preferences

Step 6: Finish Up from Your Browser

• Enable email notification of topic changes - TWikiSiteTools has more.

1. 1. TWiki now supports several Password file format/encoding methods for Apache. Once you know what method is used by your Appache server, you can configure TWiki to create compatible .htpasswd entries by editing the $htpasswdFormatFamily, $htpasswdEncoding and $htpasswdFilename in the TWiki.cfg file. The supported options are htpasswd:plain, htpasswd:crypt, htpasswd:sha1, htdigest:md5

• • You can customize the default user home page in NewUserTemplate. The same variables get expanded as in the template topics

WYSIWYG Editor

• For Unix or Linux, check TWiki:Codev/TWikiOnUnix (install your own RCS, diff and grep tools if in doubt!) and TWiki:Codev/TWikiOnLinux.

• If you need really urgent help, try the TWiki:Codev/TWikiIRC channel.

• The twiki/bin directory of TWiki must be set as a cgi-bin directory. Add /home/httpd/twiki/bin to file httpd.conf (typcially located in /etc/httpd/) with only ExecCGI option.

• • IMPORTANT: On ISP-hosted accounts (and some intranet servers), Perl CGI scripts may require a .cgi extension to run. Some systems need .pl, the regular Perl extension. Rename all twiki/bin scripts if necessary.

• Add the TWiki:Main/PoweredByTWikiLogo to your Main.WebHome topic.

• The twiki/data/*/*.txt,v RCS repository files in the installation package are locked by user nobody. If your CGI scripts are not running as user nobody, it's not possible to check in files (you'll see that the revision number won't increase after saving a topic). In this case, you need to unlock all repository files (check the RCS man pages) and lock them with a different user, such as www-data, or delete them all - new files will be automatically created the first time each topic is edited. A simple way to change ownership is with a search-and-replace in all files; for example, using Perl (type this carefully!):

• Edit the TWikiPreferences topic in the TWiki web (by pointing your browser to http://yourdomain.com/twiki/bin/view/TWiki/TWikiPreferences) to set the WIKIWEBMASTER email address, and other email settings required for registration and WebChangesAlert to work:

• To enable the WebChangesAlerts (email notifications) you need to read about cron in the topic TWikiSiteTools.

1. 1. Rename file .htaccess.txt in the twiki/bin directory to .htaccess and change it to your needs. For details, consult the HTTP server documentation (for Apache server: [1], [2]). In particular, the following red part needs to be configured correctly:
      

• To install TWiki on SourceForge, for use on a software development project, read TWiki:Codev/TWikiOnSourceForge

• For Unix or Linux, check TWiki:Codev/TWikiOnUnix and TWiki:Codev/TWikiOnLinux.
• For Windows, check the WindowsInstallCookbook? .
• For MacOS X, check TWiki:Codev/TWikiOnMacOSX.
• For other platforms, see TWiki:Codev/TWikiOn, and search the TWiki:Codev and TWiki:Support webs for other installation notes.

	 # -------------- Change these settings if required

	 $twikiLibPath = '/some/other/path/lib';	# Path to lib directory containing TWiki.pm

You can also edit $localPerlLibPath in the setlib.cfg file if you are not root and need to install additional CPAN modules, but can't update the main Perl installation files on the server. Just set this variable to the full pathname to your local lib directory, typically under your home directory.

• • RCS - revision control system to store revision of topics and attachments. You can use RCS executables or a version of RCS written in Perl, note that as the time of writing (Apr 2002) the Perl version has not been widely tested, so if you want to put up a live site the RCS executables are recommended.
    • Set $storeTopicImpl = "RcsWrap"; for the RCS executables and make sure RCS is installed. Set $rcsDir in twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg to match the location of your RCS binaries. You can check this by issuing the command rcs at the prompt, it should result in something like "rcs: no input file".
      • Check that you have GNU diff, by typing diff -v - an error indicates you have a non-GNU diff, so install the GNU diffutils package and make sure that diff is on the PATH used by TWiki (see $safeEnvPath in the TWiki.cfg file).

• Security issue: Directories twiki/data , twiki/templates and all their subdirectories should be set so that they are not visible through URLs. (Alternatively, move the directories to a place where they are not visible, and change the variables in twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg accordingly)

Step 4: Configure Site-Wide Email Preferences

• From your web browser, edit the TWikiPreferences topic in the TWiki:TWiki web to set the WIKIWEBMASTER email address, and other email settings required for registration and WebChangesAlert to work:
  • WIKIWEBMASTER should be set to the email address of the TWiki administrator
  • SMTPMAILHOST is typically set on Windows or other non-Unix/Linux systems, where sendmail or similar is not available. When this is set and the Perl module Net::SMTP is installed, TWiki will connect to this SMTP server (e.g. mail.yourdomain.com) to send email for user registration and WebChangesAlerts. If you do have a sendmail-type program, leave SMTPMAILHOST unset so that the external sendmail program is used instead (defined by $mailProgram in TWiki.cfg).
  • SMTPSENDERHOST is optional, and set to the domain name sending the email (e.g. twiki.yourdomain.com). For use where the SMTP server requires that you identify the TWiki server sending mail. If not set, Net::SMTP will guess it for you.
• You may want to set up other TWikiPreferences later on.

Step 5: Finish Up from Your Browser

• Customization:
  • You can customize the registration form by deleting or adding input tags. The name="" parameter of the input tags must start with: "Twk0..." (if this is an optional entry), or "Twk1..." (if this is a required entry). This ensures that the fields are carried over into the user home page correctly.
  • You can customize the default user home page in NewUserTemplate.

• Create directory /home/httpd/twiki and unzip the TWiki distribution into this directory.

• The twiki/data/*/*.txt,v RCS repository files in the installation package are locked by user nobody. If your CGI scripts are not running as user nobody, it's not possible to check in files (you'll see that the revision number won't increase after saving a topic). In this case, you need to unlock all repository files (check the RCS man pages) and lock them with a different user, ex www-data, or delete them all - new files will be automatically created the first time each topic is edited. A simple way to change ownership is with a search-and-replace in all files; for example, using perl:

1. 1. Copy the TWikiRegistrationPub? topic to TWikiRegistration, overwriting old version of TWikiRegistration. Do that by either editing the topics in theTWiki web, or by renaming the .txt and .txt,v files in the twiki/data/TWiki directory.

• • RCS - revision control system to store revsion of topics and attachments. You can use RCS executables or a version of RCS written in Perl, note that as the time of writing (Apr 2002) the Perl version has not been widely tested, so if you want to put up a live site the RCS executables are recommended. (Dateframework - prior version of TWiki only support the RCS executables and do not have the config setting $storeTopicImpl)
    • Set $storeTopicImpl = "RcsLite"; for the Perl based RCS
    • Set $storeTopicImpl = "RcsWrap"; for the RCS execuatbles and make sure RCS is installed. Set $rcsDir in twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg to mach the location of your RCS binaries. You can check this by issuing the comand rcs at the prompt, it should result in something like "rcs: no input file".

• • • NOTE: In the TWiki distribution package, the twiki/data/.htpasswd.txt file contains several TWiki core team user accounts and a guest user account. You probably want to remove those accounts by deleting the entries in .htpasswd. Do not remove the guest user if you want to allow guest logins.

• The twiki/data and twiki/templates directories should be set so that they are not visible as URLs. Add them to httpd.conf with deny from all.

• This Guide assumes user nobody ownership for all files manipulated by the CGI scripts (executed by the Web server), and user twiki for all other files. You can:

• • • HINT: Run the testenv script from your browser: http://yourdomain.com/twiki/bin/testenv. It will show you the user name of the CGI scripts, a table listing all CGI environment variables, and a test of your twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg configuration file (you'll configure that in a minute).

• The twiki/data/*/*.txt,v RCS repository files in the installation package are locked by user nobody. If your CGI scripts are not running as user nobody, it's not possible to check in files (you'll see that the revision number won't increase after saving a topic). In this case, you need to unlock all repository files (check the RCS man pages) and lock them with a different user, ex www-data, or delete them all - new files will be automatically created the first time each topic is edited. A simple way to change ownership is with a search-and-replace in all files; for example, using sed:

cd twiki/data
for f in */*,v; do sed 's/nobody\:/www-data\:/' $f > x; mv -f x $f; done

• • Make sure RCS is installed. Set $rcsDir in twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg to mach the location of your RCS binaries. You can check this by issuing the comand rcs at the prompt, it should result in something like "rcs: no input file".

• • Or, point to http://yourdomain.com/twiki/ to get the pre-TWiki index.html page, with a link to the view script. Customize this page if you want a public intro screen with a login link, instead of immediately calling up the .htaccess login dialog by going directly to view.

1. 1. Rename file .htaccess.txt in the twiki/bin directory to .htaccess and change it to your needs. For details, consult the HTTP server documentation (for Apache server: [1], [2]). In particular, the following red part needs to be configured correctly:
      Redirect /urlpathto/twiki/index.html http://yourdomain.com/urlpathto/twiki/bin/view
AuthUserFile /filepathto/twiki/data/.htpasswd
ErrorDocument 401 /urlpathto/twiki/bin/oops/TWiki/TWikiRegistration?template=oopsauth
      • NOTE: If you had to add a .cgi or .pl file extension to the bin scripts, make sure to do the same for edit, view, preview, and all the other script names in .htaccess.
      • The browser should ask for login name and password when you click on the Edit link. In case .htaccess does not have the desired effect, you need to enable it: Add "AllowOverride All" to the Directory [3] section of access.conf for your twiki/bin directory.
        • This applies only if you have root access: on hosted accounts, you shouldn't have this problem - otherwise, email tech support.
      • NOTE: In the TWiki distribution package, tje twiki/data/.htpasswd.txt file contains several TWiki core team user accounts and a guest user account. You probably want to remove those accounts by deleting the entries in .htpasswd. Do not remove the guest user if you want to allow guest logins.

• • • HINT: You can customize the registration form by deleting or adding input tags. The name="" parameter of the input tags must start with: "Twk0..." (if this is an optional entry), or "Twk1..." (if this is a required entry). This ensures that the fields are processed correctly.

• • NOTE: When a user registers, a new line with the username and encrypted password is added to the data/.htpasswd file. The .htpasswd file that comes with the TWiki installation includes user accounts for TWiki core team members that are used for testing on TWiki.org. You can edit the file and delete those lines.

• • Use a name consisting of characters A..Z , a..z but not in WikiNotation. (The name should start with one (or more) uppercase letters, but have no uppercase letters after the first group -- if it starts with a lowercase letter or is a WikiWord, some features of TWiki will not work as expected.)

• • HINT: You can set permissions of .txt and .txt,v files to -rw-rw-rw- (666) and then edit the topic using your browser; RCS will restore the file permissions correctly when saving the topic.

• • • NOTE: The distribution package has a twiki/data/.htpasswd file which contains some TWiki core team user accounts and a guest user account. You probably want to remove those accounts by deleting the entries in .htpasswd. Do not remove the guest user in case you want to allow guest logins.

• Enable email notification of topic changes, TWikiSiteTools has more.

• Set the file permission of all Perl scripts in the twiki/bin directory as executable to -rwxr-xr-x (755).

• • Use a name starting with characters A..Z, followed by a..z and/or 0..9 characters, but not a WikiWord.

• • • HINT: Run the testenv script from your browser: http://yourdomain.com/twiki/bin/testenv. It will show you the user name of the CGI scripts, a table listing all CGI environment variables, and a test of your twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg configuration file (you'll configure that in a minute).

• Set the file permission of all Perl scripts in the twiki/bin directory as executable to -rwxr-xr-x (755).

• NOTE: The twiki/data/*/*.txt,v RCS repository files in the installation package are locked by user nobody. If your CGI scripts are not running as user nobody, it's not possible to check in files (you'll see that the revision number won't increase after saving a topic). In this case, you need to unlock all repository files (check the RCS man pages) and lock them with a different user, ex www-data, or delete them all - new files will be automatically created the first time each topic is edited. A simple way to change ownership is with a search-and-replace in all files; for example, using sed:
  for f in *,v; do sed 's/nobody\:/www-data\:/' $f > x; mv x $f; done

• Test your settings by running the testenv script from your browser: http://yourdomain.com/twiki/bin/testenv. Check if your twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg configuration file settings are correct.

• Edit the TWikiPreferences topic in the TWiki:TWiki web to set the WIKIWEBMASTER email address, and other preferences.
• Edit the WebPreferences topic in each web, if necessary: set individual WEBCOPYRIGHT messages, and other preferences.
• Enable email notification of topic changes, MonitoringSiteActivity? has more.

• Add the TWiki:Main/PoweredByTWikiLogo to your Main topic.

Enabling Authentication of Users

• If TWiki is installed on a non-authenticated server - not using SSL - and you'd like to authenticate users:
  1. Rename file .htaccess.txt in the twiki/bin directory to .htaccess and change it to your needs. For details, consult the HTTP server documentation (for Apache server: [1], [2]). In particular, the following red part needs to be configured correctly:
     Redirect /urlpath/to/TWiki/index.html http://your.domain.com/urlpath/to/TWiki/bin/view
AuthUserFile /filepath/to/TWiki/data/.htpasswd
ErrorDocument 401 /urlpath/to/TWiki/bin/oops/TWiki/TWikiRegistration?template=oopsauth
     • NOTE: In case you renamed the CGI script files to have a file extension you need to reflect that in the edit, view, preview, etc entries in .htaccess.
     • NOTE: The browser should ask for login name and password when you click on the Edit link. In case .htaccess does not have the desired effect you need to enable it: Add "AllowOverride All" to the Directory section of access.conf for your twiki/bin directory.
  2. Copy the TWikiRegistrationPub? topic to TWikiRegistration. Do that by either editing the topics in theTWiki web, or by renaming the .txt and .txt,v files in the twiki/data/TWiki directory.
     • HINT: You can customize the registration form by deleting or adding input tags. The name="" parameter of the input tags must start with: "Twk0..." (if this is an optional entry), or "Twk1..." (if this is a required entry). This ensures that the fields are processed correctly.
• Register yourself in the TWikiRegistration topic.
  • NOTE: When a user registers, a new line with the username and encrypted password is added to the data/.htpasswd file. The .htpasswd file that comes with the TWiki installation includes user accounts for TWiki core team members that are used for testing on TWiki.org. You can edit the file and delete those lines.
• Create a new topic to check if authentication works.
• Edit the TWikiAdminGroup topic in the TWiki:Main web to include users with system administrator status.
• Edit the TWikiPreferences topic in the TWiki:TWiki web to set access privileges.
• Edit the WebPreferences topic in each web, if necessary: set access priviliges.

• Restart Apache by /etc/rc.d/rc5.d/S85httpd restart .
• Test that the twiki/bin directory is CGI-enabled by trying visiting it in your browser:
  • Enter the URL for the bin directory, http://yourdomain.com/twiki/bin/.
  • Your settings are OK if you get a message like "Forbidden. You don't have permission to access /twiki/bin/ on this server".
  • Settings are NOT correct if you get something like "Index of /twiki/bin" - recheck your httpd.conf file.

Step 2: Set File Permissions

• 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 elsewhere, change the path to Perl in the first line of each script in the twiki/bin directory, or create a symbolic link from /usr/bin/perl.
  • IMPORTANT: On ISP-hosted accounts, Perl CGI scripts usually require a .cgi extension to run. Some systems need .pl, the regular Perl extension. Modify all twiki/bin script filenames if necessary.

• NOTE: This Guide assumes user nobody ownership for all files manipulated by the CGI scripts (executed by the Web server), and user twiki for all other files. You can:
  • replace nobody with another user if your server executes scripts under a different name (ex: default for Debian is www-data).
  • replace user twiki with your own username

• Test your settings by running the testenv script from your browser: http://yourdomain.com/twiki/bin/testenv. You should get a table listing all CGI environment variables, and a test of your twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg configuration file (you'll configure that in a minute).

Step 3: Set the Main Configuration File

• Edit the file twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg, setting the variables to your needs.

• NOTE: The *,v RCS repository files in the installation package are locked by user nobody. If your CGI scripts are not running as user nobody, it's not possible to check in files (you'll see that the revision number won't increase after saving a topic). In this case, you need to unlock all repository files and lock them as user www-data (check the RCS man pages), or delete them all - new files will be automatically created the first time each topic is edited. A simple way to change ownership is with a search-and-replace in all files; for example, using sed:
  for f in *,v; do sed 's/nobody\:/www-data\:/' $f > x; mv x $f; done

Step 4: Finish Up from Your Browser

Standard Installation

Request and download the TWiki 01-Sep-2001 distribution in Unix ZIP format from http://TWiki.org/download.html. (To install TWiki on SourceForge, for use on a software development project, read TWiki:Codev/SourceForgeHowTo.)

• NOTE: If you don't have access to your Web server configuration files - for example, if you're installing on an ISP-hosted account - use the alternative Step 1 instead.
• NOTE: To install TWiki on SourceForge, for use on a software development project, read TWiki:Codev/SourceForgeHowTo.