Setting up a wiki when you don't have root

P

Phil Tomson

I'm taking a research-oriented class (Quantum Computing) where all the
students are supposed to find info and develop new ideas based on this
research and then share with the rest of the class. It's the share with
the rest of the class part that's problematic. I suggested that we set up
a wiki - of course nobody knew what that was, but when I explained it the
prof told me to go and set one up for the class (next time maybe I won't
be quite so forthcoming).

So the problem is, while I understand how Wikis work and I've used them
(and I've even set them up for internal use at work) I'm not quite sure
how I would go about setting one up so that anyone on the internet can
use it without having root access.

I want to use Instiki since it's so easy to setup, but how do I go about
setting it up on port 80 without root access so that anyone can get at it?

Phil
 
D

David Heinemeier Hansson

I want to use Instiki since it's so easy to setup, but how do I go
about
setting it up on port 80 without root access so that anyone can get at
it?

You can start Instiki to run on any port including 80. But it's very
likely that it'll conflict with an existing Apache installation. So
then you can either just pick another port, like the Instiki default of
2500, and hope that the machine allows connections on that port. If it
doesn't, ask the admin to open it for you.

If neither of the above works, you can try your luck with
mod_proxy/mod_rewrite and forward calls to 80 to your Instiki running
on port 2500. If you have access to the httpd.conf, or a vhost that
gets included by httpd.conf, something like this will work:

<VirtualHost *>
ServerName wiki.mydomain.com
ProxyPass / http://127.0.0.1:2500/
ProxyPassReverse / http://127.0.0.1:2500/
</VirtualHost>

Now you just need to point a domain like wiki.mydomain.com to the
machine. There's a bunch of free services for managing DNS records out
there -- http://www.dyndns.org/ is one.

If that doesn't do it either (since you have to get Apache restarted at
least once to get the vhost in), you can try with a .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://127.0.0.1:2500/$1 [P] [QSA]

That requires that you have the right to do mod_rewrite in your
htaccess file and that both mod_rewrite and mod_proxy is installed and
turned on with the Apache running.

P.S.: I've mirrored this answer on
http://instiki.nextangle.com/instiki/show/RunningInstikiOnPortEighty --
if others have suggestions or help or corrections, please do add it to
this page as well. Thanks!

P.P.S.: I've just registered instiki.org and I plan to get a pretty
logo drawn as well. This pretty little thing my just turn out to grow
into a Real Project after all -- who would have thought :)
 
C

Chad Fowler

I'm taking a research-oriented class (Quantum Computing) where all the
students are supposed to find info and develop new ideas based on this
research and then share with the rest of the class. It's the share
with
the rest of the class part that's problematic. I suggested that we
set up
a wiki - of course nobody knew what that was, but when I explained it
the
prof told me to go and set one up for the class (next time maybe I
won't
be quite so forthcoming).

So the problem is, while I understand how Wikis work and I've used them
(and I've even set them up for internal use at work) I'm not quite sure
how I would go about setting one up so that anyone on the internet can
use it without having root access.

I want to use Instiki since it's so easy to setup, but how do I go
about
setting it up on port 80 without root access so that anyone can get at
it?

Phil,

RuWiki is really easy to setup as a CGI script. You might consider
that one too.

Chad
 

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