Installing the Akara/Moin REST wrapper

Note: we try to keep this page up to date with info about current deployment environments. See the "Current notes" section for more.

Ubuntu

• Install Apache web server:

aptitude install apache2

• Install additional libraries:

aptitude install build-essential python2.6-dev python-pip python-openid python-openssl python2.6-openssl openssl-blacklist openssl-blacklist-extra python-httplib2 python2.6-simplejson python-feedparser python-setuptools curl ntp mercurial unzip chkconfig flex bison libssl-dev subversion

Install MoinMoin

aptitude install python-moinmoin

See also:

• https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HelpOnInstallingMoinMoin

Install PyXML (needed by !MoinMoin)

aptitude install python-xml

Change the data_dir value in /etc/moin/mywiki.py:

data_dir = '/usr/share/moin/data/'

Change ownership of moin directory to www-data:

cd /usr/share
chown -R www-data moin
chgrp -R www-data moin

Modify /etc/moin/farmconfig.py to reflect correct directories (Critical setup section):

    data_dir = '/usr/share/moin/data/'
    data_underlay_dir = '/usr/share/moin/underlay/'

Modify /etc/moin/farmconfig.py again to setup security (Security section, note that additional ACLs will need to be included [or groups made] for users that get added):

    # This is checked by some rather critical and potentially harmful actions,
    # like despam or PackageInstaller action:
    superuser = [u"JohnDoe"]

    # IMPORTANT: grant yourself admin rights! replace YourName with
    # your user name. See HelpOnAccessControlLists for more help.
    # All acl_rights_xxx options must use unicode [Unicode]
    #acl_rights_before = u"JohnDoe:read,write,delete,revert,admin"
    acl_rights_default = u'Known:read,write'

    # Link spam protection for public wikis (uncomment to enable).
    # Needs a reliable internet connection.
    from MoinMoin.security.antispam import SecurityPolicy

    from MoinMoin.auth.openidrp import OpenIDAuth
    from MoinMoin.auth import MoinAuth
    auth = [OpenIDAuth(),MoinAuth()]
    anonymous_session_lifetime = 60

Setup redirect for requests coming in to root of web server. Change /var/www/index.html to:

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" Content="0; URL=http://wiki.example.org/mywiki">

Moin bug fixes

Stock Moin 1.9 has several bugs generating XML. You can find a patch to fix these problems and a patch here:

http://moinmo.in/MoinMoinBugs/XmlExport%20produces%20malformed%20XML#preview

Or a drop-in replacement here:

http://gonzaga.akara.info/~uogbuji/etc/2010-04/text_xml.py

Setting up the Akara daemon user

As superuser on the wiki, add a Moin account named akara to be used by the REST wrapper.

See also:

• Ubuntu farm config HOWTO

Akara config for the daemon user

As superuser on the machine create a user, e.g. akara.

adduser -M akara -s /sbin/nologin

Switch to the user (su - akara). Create ~/.pydistutils.cfg with following contents:

[install]
home = ~/.local

Install Amara and Akara from a nightly snapshot:

pip install http://files.akara.info/00-amara-latest.tar.bz2
pip install http://files.akara.info/00-akara-latest.tar.bz2

Now prep the Akara config, as in Akara/Quick_start:

mkdir $HOME/.config/
mkdir -p $HOME/.local/lib/akara/logs
mkdir -p $HOME/.local/lib/akara/modules
cp lib/akara.conf $HOME/.config/

Install the moinrest Akara module:

cd $HOME/.local/lib/akara/modules
wget http://bitbucket.org/uche/akara/raw/tip/demo/modules/moinrest.py

Update $HOME/.config/akara.conf with configuration for the wiki, for example add:

[moinrest]
target-mywiki=http://localhost/mywiki/
# Note: if Apache is using Basic Authentication, define target like this:
# target-mywiki=http://username:password@localhost/mywiki

You may need to update PATH and PYTHONPATH, e.g. by adding the following to the ~/.profile (and running it on the command line for the first time)

export PATH=$PATH:~/.local/bin
export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:~/.local/lib/python 

Start the Akara server:

akara start

If you get any errors, check the log at ~/.local/lib/akara/logs/error.log. You might need to tweak the config at ~/.local/.config/akara.conf

For sure you will want to make sure each akara daemon user is configured to use a different port (e.g. 8880, 8881, 8882, ...).

Later on, if need be you can restart the Akara server as follows:

akara restart

If, however, you change any Python libraries used by Akara modules, you might have to do a hard restart:

akara stop ; sleep 2 ; akara start

Password-protecting the wiki

This section only if you want to password-protect the entire wiki

Add the following to Apache config file /etc/apache2/sites-available/default (right before the line "ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log":

       ### moin
       ScriptAlias /mywiki "/usr/share/moin/server/moin.cgi"
       alias /moin_static182 "/usr/share/moin/htdocs"
       <Directory /usr/share/moin/htdocs>
           AllowOverride None
           Order allow,deny
           Allow from all
       </Directory>
       <Directory "/usr/share/moin/server">
           AuthType Basic
           AuthName "MyWiki"
           AuthUserFile /usr/share/apache2/passwd/passwords
           Require user someusername
           Order allow,deny
           Allow from 127.0.0.1
           Allow from <public-ip-of-server>
           Satisfy any
       </Directory>
       ### end moin

You might have to change moin_static182 depending on installed moin version.

Setup HTTP authorization for Apache:

mkdir /usr/share/apache2/passwd
htpasswd -c /usr/share/apache2/passwd/passwords someusername
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

For hints on configuring the wiki for a farm (multiple wikis provided by a single server), adding themes, and exporting a wiki to static pages, see: http://www.pantz.org/software/moinmoin/setup_moinmoin_wiki.html

On WebFaction

HowToInstallMoinWithNginx

Current notes

Ubuntu Karmic comes with Moin 1.8 and the 1.9 .debs from Lucid don't work so well yet. If you want to use 1.9, you can start with these instructions to build from source while using above notes to reconfigure as a farm (or refer to Ubuntu farm config HOWTO).