Installation Guide
This guide describes the steps for manually installing Foswiki, with specific steps for installations on Linux with the Apache web server. If you are using a different web server or operating system, in addition to reviewing this document, check any additional information specific to your platform at
Foswiki:Support.SupplementalDocuments.
Foswiki:Support.SupplementalDocuments also has information for other scenarios, such as shared web hosting environments.
These installation instructions are also available online at
Foswiki:System.InstallationGuide, and are available within your Foswiki installation at
System.InstallationGuide
(the InstallationGuide topic in the System web).
For information on upgrades, please also refer to
Foswiki:System.UpgradeGuide. A static HTML version of this document,
UpgradeGuide.html
, is included in the root of your Foswiki distribution.
System Requirements
Please see the section "
Foswiki system requirements" for the server and client requirements to run Foswiki, including the Perl modules required on the server. If you need to install any Perl libraries from CPAN for use by Foswiki, see
Foswiki:Support.HowToInstallCpanModules for more information.
Preparing to install
Before attempting to install Foswiki, you are encouraged to review the
Foswiki:System.AdminSkillsAssumptions. This guide assumes the person installing Foswiki has a basic knowledge of server administration on the system on which Foswiki is to be installed. While it is possible to install Foswiki with FTP access alone (for example, on a hosted site), it is tricky and may require additional support from your hosting service (for example, in setting file ownership and installing missing perl CPAN libraries).
If you are upgrading from a previous Foswiki version or from a TWiki installation, please refer to
Foswiki:System.UpgradeGuide. A static HTML version of this document,
UpgradeGuide.html
, is included in the root of your Foswiki distribution.
Verify that your server meets the
Foswiki system requirements, including having the minimum required Perl version and all required Perl modules installed. If you need to install any Perl libraries from CPAN for use by Foswiki, see
Foswiki:Support.HowToInstallCpanModules for more information.
If you need help, feel free to ask a question in the
Foswiki:Support web or on
Foswiki:Community.InternetRelayChat (irc.freenode.net, channel #foswiki).
Basic installation: getting Foswiki up and running
To install Foswiki, complete the following steps:
- Download and unpack the Foswiki distribution.
- Set the file and directory permissions for the installation.
- Configure the locations of the Perl executable and the Foswiki modules.
- Configure the web server.
- Configure Foswiki.
- Enable authentication of users (if desired).
- Define the administrator users.
Download and unpack the Foswiki distribution
Download the Foswiki distribution from
http://foswiki.org/Download
Unpack the distribution file: Change to the directory where you want to place the Foswiki directory. Unzip or untar and gunzip the distribution; a new subdirectory called Foswiki-VERSION will be created. You can rename this subdirectory to a shorter name. For the rest of this document, this subdirectory is assumed to be at
/path/to/foswiki
.
- Note: Foswiki does not support directory paths that contain spaces, so ensure that all of its directory paths do not contain any spaces (particularly on Windows).
If you do not have shell access to your web server host, see the section "
Uploading the Foswiki distribution to your web server host".
Set the file and directory permissions for the installation
Set up access file and directory rights, as well as file ownership, as required by your web server configuration so that the web server user (the user used by the web server to run CGI programs) can read and write within the
foswiki
directory tree.
Note: for more information on the appropriate permissions to ensure security for your Foswiki data, see
Foswiki:Support.SecuringYourSite.
The default file and directory access permissions as set by the distribution define a reasonable security level that will work for many types of installations, including shared hosting. Nonetheless, you should verify that the web server user has read access to all files and directories beneath the
foswiki
directory, and execute access for all directories. Also verify that the
data
and
pub
directories and all the subdirectories and files beneath them allow write access for the web server user.
- Warning: Do not just run a
chmod -R 770 foswiki
. Providing execute access to all files is potentially dangerous. This is a common mistake made by Foswiki installers. See Foswiki:Support.SettingFileAccessRightsLinuxUnix for a sample set of Unix commands to set the file and directory permissions.
It is possible to define tighter access permissions than the default ones; how tight they should be depends on your web server environment and local needs. Typically you should limit all access from others if the web server machine has login access for users other than root and the web server administrator. For a dedicated web server that just runs Foswiki and has limited login access, the default access permissions have a good safety level.
If you have root user permissions, then for additional security, you can change the ownership of the
foswiki
directory tree to the web server user, using the command
chown -R user:group /path/to/foswiki
. The web server username varies in different installations; here are some sample commands for various Linux distributions:
- RedHat, Fedora, CentOS, Gentoo, Mandriva :
chown -R apache:apache /path/to/foswiki
- debian/Ubuntu/Kubuntu :
chown -R www-data:www-data /path/to/foswiki
- Suse :
chown -R wwwrun:www /path/to/foswiki
If Foswiki stops working after you applied a change in access permissions and you wish to restore the original permissions, run the Unix commands located at
Foswiki:Support.SettingFileAccessRightsLinuxUnix.
Configure the locations of the Perl executable and the Foswiki modules
Make sure the Foswiki scripts can be executed by the web server. 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 (you may have to give yourself write permission first) in the
bin
and
tools
directories. You can use the
tools/rewriteshbang.pl
script to do this; for example:
cd /path/to/foswiki/bin
/path/to/perl ../tools/rewriteshbang.pl
# At the prompt, enter the full path to the perl executable, including
# the full filename of the executable. You will be prompted twice for
# this information in order to confirm it.
cd /path/to/foswiki/tools
/path/to/perl rewriteshbang.pl
Some web servers require a special extension on perl script files (e.g.
.cgi
or
.pl
). This is not normally required with the Apache web server, though some hosted web servers are configured to require it. If the documentation for your web server indicates that a special extension is necessary, rename all the executable scripts in
bin
; that is, rename
bin/view
to
bin/view.pl
, and so on. When configuring Foswiki (see the section "
Configure Foswiki"), set the
ScriptSuffix
option to the special extension.
Create the file LocalLib.cfg located at
bin/LocalLib.cfg
- In the
bin
directory, copy the template file LocalLib.cfg.txt
to LocalLib.cfg
. Make sure the ownership and access rights of the copy are the same as LocalLib.cfg.txt.
- Edit
bin/LocalLib.cfg
so that $foswikiLibPath
is set to the absolute file path of your lib
directory. For example: /path/to/foswiki/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 web server user has to be able to read those files as well.
Configure the web server
First choose the best configuration method for your web server. With Apache, there are two ways to configure it: a config file included from httpd.conf or .htaccess files.
- Apache config file: The recommended method is using a config file. With a config file you can put the entire Foswiki configuration in ONE file (typically named
foswiki.conf
). Performance is much better with a config file, and one file gives the best overview and ensures that you get a safe installation . However to use a config file you need root or sudo access to stop and start Apache. The Foswiki apache config file is included from the main Apache config file http.conf. Most distributions have a directory from which any file that ends with .conf
gets included when you restart Apache (Example RedHat/Fedora/Centos: /etc/httpd/conf.d
). If you use a virtual host setup in Apache you should include the foswiki.conf
file from inside the desired virtual host config in your Apache configuration.
- .htaccess files: This method should only be used when you cannot use a config file. Performance is slower as Apache must search through all applicable directories for any
.htaccess
files on each page access. Normally this is the only way to control Apache in a shared host environment where you have no root or sudo privileges.
If you are using a config file:
- The easiest and best way is to use the Foswiki:Support.ApacheConfigGenerator tool to generate a safe, working config file for your Foswiki installation, based on the options you choose in the tool.
- If you can't use the online configuration generator, a sample config file called
foswiki_httpd_conf.txt
can be found in the root of the foswiki installation.
- Ensure that web access is denied to all Foswiki subdirectories other than
bin
and pub
. The Foswiki:Support.ApacheConfigGenerator tool will generate the appropriate settings; the foswiki_httpd_conf.txt
file also has examples of configuring Apache appropriately.
- Ensure there is either a
ScriptAlias
directive for the bin
subdirectory, or an Alias
directive with SetHandler cgi-script
and Options ExecCGI
directives for the bin
subdirectory, so that the bin
scripts will be executed by Apache.
- Note: you must restart Apache after making changes to your config files for the changes to take effect.
If you are using a .htaccess file:
- In the root of the foswiki installation and in the
bin
directory, there are sample .htaccess
files for various subdirectories in your installation. Each file has help text explaining how to modify it for your configuration. For more information, see Foswiki:Support.SupplementalDocuments. | foswiki/subdir-htaccess.txt
| .htaccess
in all other subdirectories below foswiki
|
- Ensure that web access is denied to all Foswiki subdirectories other than
bin
and pub
. The sample .htaccess
files show how to configure Apache appropriately.
- Ensure that the
foswiki/bin/.htaccess
files contains the line SetHandler cgi-script
so that all scripts in the bin
directory will be executed by Apache.
Turn off any kind of PHP, Perl, Python, Server Side Includes, or other software execution mechanisms supported by your web server in the pub
directory. For example, most Linux distributions have a default Apache installation with PHP and server side include (SSI) enabled. This would allow PHP scripts uploaded as attachments to be executed, which is a security risk, so it should be disabled in the Apache configuration with
php_admin_flag engine off
.
Different script execution mechanisms are disabled in different ways; see your web server configuration and documentation for more details.
Protect the configure script: You should never leave the
configure
script open to the public. Limit access to the
bin/configure
script to either localhost, an IP address or a specific user using basic Apache authentication. The
Foswiki:Support.ApacheConfigGenerator lets you setup who has access to the
configure
script. Also see the
foswiki-httpd-conf.txt
or
bin/.htaccess.txt
file for an example of the setting required to protect the
configure
script.
To limit access to a particular user, set up a
.htpasswd
file that contains the user name and password that Apache will use to authenticate the user:
- Change to the
foswiki/data
directory.
- Issue the command
htpasswd -c .htpasswd <username>
, where <username> is the name of the user you will use to access the configure
script. Choose the username with care: the username cannot be an existing login name for your Foswiki installation, nor can it be used later on to register in Foswiki. Enter a password when prompted.
The
Foswiki:Support.ApacheConfigGenerator tool and the sample config files and .htaccess files show how to configure Apache so that the
configure
web page will be protected using the user and password held in the
data/.htpasswd
file. The Apache config file or .htaccess file will have a
Require user <username>
directive to restrict access to the
configure
script. Ensure the user specified in the directive matches the <username> you used when creating the .htpasswd file.
Note: In addition to any web server security protection that you have set up, when saving any configuration settings for the first time on the
configure
web page, you will be prompted to set a configuration password. This password must be entered on all subsequent configuration changes, and is also used to log in via the internal admin link (see the section "
Define the administrator user(s)"). Even after a
configure
password has been set, access to the
configure
page should still be restricted by the web server, in order to avoid revealing internal information to potential attackers.
For more information, refer to
Foswiki:Support.ProtectingYourConfiguration.
Configure Foswiki
Run the configure
script from your browser: enter
http://yourdomain/foswiki/bin/configure
into your browser address bar.
- When you access the
configure
web page for the first time, you can only edit the section General Path Settings
. Make any required changes, and save the settings, whether or not you needed to make any changes. You will be prompted to set a password for the configure
page: this password must be entered for all subsequent configuration changes, and is also used to log in via the internal admin link (see the section "Define the administrator user(s)"). Note the configuration password is separate from any web server security you have set up for the configure
web page (see "Protect the configure script").
- Continue configuring Foswiki. Resolve any errors or warnings highlighted on the configure page.
- If your web server can be accessed by more than one domain name make sure to add the additional alternative URLs to
{PermittedRedirectHostUrls}
- Setup the Mail and Proxies section. The
{WebMasterEmail}
and {SMTP}{MAILHOST}
settings must be defined so Foswiki can 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}
. If you do not want to enable sending registration emails or want to enable it later you can uncheck {EnableEmail}
. If your server is behind a firewall with a proxy, and you wish to install extensions via configure
, you may have to set {PROXY}{HOST}
and {PROXY}{PORT}
.
If there is a problem with your setup that prevents you from accessing the
configure
page, you can
configure Foswiki manually.
Enable authentication of users
By enabling authentication, you can control access to your site and track the activity of your users.
This is particularly important for sites that are publicly accessible on the web. You are strongly encouraged to read
System.UserAuthentication and
Foswiki:Support.UserAuthenticationSupplement for further information about managing users and access controls for your Foswiki site.
The most common authentication methods used for public Foswiki installations are Template Login and Apache Login. They have the following relative advantages:
- Template Login can be set up without any web server configuration, and users can log off without restarting the browser. As the login page is just a Wiki page, you can customize it to suit your needs.
- Apache Login allows you to use any Apache-module based authentication scheme, such as
mod_auth_ldap
or mod_auth_mysql
. However, as your browser is caching your login, you must restart the browser to log out.
Note that the password databases for both of these authentication mechanisms are compatible, so you can switch between them at a later date.
To make it easier to follow the instructions in this section, you can view this installation guide using your Foswiki site by entering
System.InstallationGuide
into the "Jump" text box. By doing this instead of using the
INSTALL.html
file from the distribution, you will be able to use the embedded hyperlinks to jump directly to the referenced pages.
Template Login authentication
With Template Login enabled, when Foswiki needs to authenticate the user, it will redirect to a login web page. A list of all users is shown in the
Main.WikiUsers
topic.
To setup Template Login, perform the following steps:
- Configure Template Login. Under the
Security Settings
pane of the configure
page:
- Select
Foswiki::LoginManager::TemplateLogin
for {LoginManager}
.
- Select
Foswiki::Users::HtPasswdUser
for {PasswordManager}
.
- Select
Foswiki::Users::TopicUserMapping
for {UserMappingManager}
.
- Save your settings.
- Verify that registration works. Register yourself using the
System.UserRegistration
topic in your Foswiki installation. Note if you are viewing this page via the INSTALL.html
file, then you can access the user registration page by entering System.UserRegistration
into the "Jump" text box at the top right of any Foswiki page in your installation.
Check that the password manager recognizes the new user by verifying that a new line is added to the foswiki/data/.htpassswd
file, with the username and encrypted password. If the user and password information was not added, you probably got a path wrong, or the directory permissions on foswiki/data
or foswiki/data/.htpasswd
may not be set to allow the web server user to modify the file.
- Check that authentication works. Edit a topic by clicking on the
Edit
link at the top or bottom of a topic. If you have been authenticated, then you will see the edit page; otherwise, you will see an error message.
As Template Login uses a wiki page for its login prompt, there is a great deal of flexibility in customizing the login page for your purposes.
Apache Login authentication
With Apache Login enabled, when Foswiki needs to authenticate the user, the standard HTTP authentication mechanism is used: the browser itself will prompt for a user name and password.
Note: Apache Login is required for Apache-based login methods such as mod_ldap.
To setup Apache Login, perform the following steps:
- Configure Apache Login. Under the
Security Settings
pane of the configure
page:
- Select
Foswiki::LoginManager::ApacheLogin
for {LoginManager}
.
- Select
Foswiki::Users::HtPasswdUser
for {PasswordManager}
.
- Select
Foswiki::Users::TopicUserMapping
for {UserMappingManager}
.
- Save your settings.
- Configure your Apache settings for HTTP authentication. Use the Foswiki:Support.ApacheConfigGenerator tool or the
foswiki/bin/.htaccess
file to set the following Apache directives on the bin
scripts:
<FilesMatch "(attach|edit|manage|rename|save|upload|mail|logon|rest|.*auth).*">
require valid-user
</FilesMatch>
You can also refer to the sample foswiki_httpd_conf.txt
and bin/.htaccess.txt
files to see how the appropriate Apache directives are specified.
- Verify that registration works. Register yourself using the
System.UserRegistration
topic in your Foswiki installation. Note if you are viewing this page via the INSTALL.html
file, then you can access the user registration page by entering System.UserRegistration
into the "Jump" text box at the top right of any Foswiki page in your installation.
Check that the password manager recognizes the new user by verifying that a new line is added to the foswiki/data/.htpassswd
file, with the username and encrypted password. If the user and password information was not added, you probably got a path wrong, or the directory permissions on foswiki/data
or foswiki/data/.htpasswd
may not be set to allow the web server user to modify the file.
- Check that authentication works. Edit a topic by clicking on the
Edit
link at the top or bottom of a topic. If you have been authenticated, then you will see the edit page; otherwise, you will see an error message.
Choose search algorithm based on your platform
Under Store Settings in configure you will find the setting {RCS}{SearchAlgorithm}.
By default it is set to Foswiki::Store::SearchAlgorithms::Forking which is what you should keep if you install Foswiki in Linux or any other Unix type operating system.
If you install Foswiki on a Windows server, using an external grep program can create problems because of limitations in the length of command lines. You may be able to run with Forking in Windows if your directory path to Foswiki is kept short (short directory names and few levels). The safe setting for Windows is Foswiki::Store::SearchAlgorithms::PurePerl.
Define the administrator user(s)
Administrators have read and write access to any topic, regardless of any access controls that have been applied to the topic or its web. After installing Foswiki, you should register a user that you will use to administer Foswiki. To make this user an administrator, add the WikiName for the user to the
AdminGroup
, defined in the
Main.AdminGroup
topic in your Foswiki installation.
To make it easier to follow the instructions in this section, you can view this installation guide using your Foswiki site by entering
System.InstallationGuide
into the "Jump" text box. By doing this instead of using the
INSTALL.html
file from the distribution, you will be able to use the embedded hyperlinks to jump directly to the referenced pages.
To add an initial administrator to the
AdminGroup
, perform the following steps:
- If you are not already logged in with your WikiName, then login.
- Go to the
Main.AdminGroup
topic and select the "internal admin login" link. Login using the password you set on the configure
page.
- After logging as the internal admin, edit the
Main.AdminGroup
topic. Follow the instructions on the page carefully and add your WikiName to the group.
- Test that you have been added successfully: On the
Main.AdminGroup
page, select the "Logout link" and logout from being the internal admin. Select the "Edit" link for the Main.AdminGroup
page. If you successfully added yourself as an admin user, you should see the edit page.
Once the
AdminGroup
is no longer empty, then any member of the group can add subsequent members — you do not have to use the internal admin login.
To more easily debug access control issues, you may want to have a regular Foswiki user account for daily use, and a special one that belongs to the
AdminGroup
that you use only for administering your Foswiki site. See
Foswiki:System.AccessControl for more information on access controls and user groups.
Congratulations!
You now have a basic installation running. At this point you can just point your Web browser at
http://yourdomain.com/foswiki/bin/view
and start using your Foswiki site.
In order to keep your user, group, and site configuration information separate from the actual content of your site, it is recommended that you create a new web in which your site's pages will reside. See
Foswiki:System.ManagingWebs for more information on Wiki webs and how to create one.
Beyond the basic installation
Once you have Foswiki installed and running, you can perform one or more of the following steps to tailor your installation to your needs. Many of the references in this section refer to topics within your Foswiki installation. For example,
System.Skins
refers to the
Skins
topic in your System web. To go directly to a topic, enter the full topic name, such as
System.Skins
, into the "Jump" text box at the top right of any Foswiki page.
To make it easier to follow the instructions in this section, you can view this installation guide using your Foswiki site by entering
System.InstallationGuide
into the "Jump" text box. By doing this instead of using the
INSTALL.html
file from the distribution, you will be able to use the embedded hyperlinks to jump directly to the referenced pages.
All of the Foswiki documentation can also be found online in the
Foswiki documentation section (the "System" web) of the Foswiki web site.
Note the
configure
page mentioned in this section is accessed by visiting
http://yourdomain/foswiki/bin/configure
your web browser.
Site configuration and maintenance
Set Foswiki Preferences
Preferences for customizing many aspects of Foswiki are set by editing
Main.SitePreferences
. If a given preference is not set in
Main.SitePreferences
, then a default value is picked up from
System.DefaultPreferences
, if present, or, for extensions, from the extension topics.
To simplify your upgrades, do not modify
System.DefaultPreferences
. Instead, copy any settings you want to change from
System.DefaultPreferences
to
Main.SitePreferences
.
To see the available preferences that can be set, look through
System.DefaultPreferences
.
If, for some reason, you wish to pick up default preferences from a different topic, you can set the location in the
Miscellaneous settings
pane of the
configure
page, in the
{SitePrefsTopicName}
setting (visible when Expert mode is enabled). It is recommended that you leave this setting to its default value,
DefaultPreferences
.
Select the desired security level
Foswiki has a many security features that can be enabled/disabled and adjusted to suit your needs.
In many cases enabling a security feature prevents other features. It is a balance that the administrator has to choose depending on the purpose of the Foswiki installation (confidential vs public knowledge), the type of installation (intranet vs internet), and your type of business.
A new administrator is encouraged to read
Foswiki:Support.SecurityFeatures which gives a walkthrough of the different security aspects and how to set the appropriate configuration settings. Note that that some security settings are only visible in configure in "expert mode" which you enter by clicking the "Yes, I've read all the documentation" button at the top of the configure screen.
Enable Email Notification
Each 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:
- Confirm the Mail and Proxies settings on the
configure
page.
- Setup a cron job (or equivalent) to call the
tools/mailnotify
script, as described in the System.MailerContrib topic.
Automate removal of expired sessions and lease files
By default Foswiki cleans out expired session and lease files each time any topic is viewed, but this has a performance cost. Instead you may wish to schedule a cron job (or equivalent) to run the
tools/tick_foswiki.pl
script, and set a negative value on the
configure
page for
{Sessions}{ExpireAfter}
. For more details, read
System.CommandAndCGIScripts#tick_foswiki_pl.
Enable WebStatistics
You can manually or automatically generate a listing of the most popular pages for each web, based on number of visits. For information on setting up this feature, see the
System.SiteTools topic.
Enable Localisation
Foswiki supports displaying national (non-ASCII) characters, and using different languages for its basic interface elements. To configure localisation, modify the
Localisation
section of the
configure
page. For more information, see
Foswiki:Support.InternationalizationSupplement.
Customizing your site
Customize pages for managing personal information
If you are not using Foswiki to manage your users' passwords or email addresses, or would just like to enhance the default pages, then modify the following topics accordingly with information appropriate for your site:
Customize the user topic for new users
When a new user registers on your Foswiki site, a topic with a name corresponding to the user's WikiName is created in the Main web: this topic is the user's user topic. The user topic is based on the
Main.NewUserTemplate?
topic; if it is not present, then
System.NewUserTemplate
(and its associated
System.UserForm
) is used as a default. If you want to customize the user topic for your users, copy
System.NewUserTemplate
to
Main.NewUserTemplate?
, and
System.UserForm
to
Main.UserForm?
, and make your changes to
Main.NewUserTemplate?
and
Main.UserForm?
. (See
Foswiki:System.ManagingTopics#CopyTopic for instructions on copying a topic.)
You can edit these topics to suit your needs, such as the following:
- Customize the user topic for your site.
- Add an
ALLOWTOPICCHANGE
preference setting to Main.NewUserTemplate?
so only the user can edit their own user topic. In particular, on a public Foswiki site, restricting edit access will avoid vandalism and spam.
- Add and remove fields defined in the
Main.UserForm?
.
If you added or removed fields from the user form you may also need to tailor
Main.UserRegistration?
to match (copy over the contents from
System.UserRegistration to
Main.UserRegistration
when creating it).
Customize the appearance of your Foswiki site
The real power of Foswiki lies in its flexibility to be customized to meet your needs. To change the look of the default skin, PatternSkin, please refer to
System.PatternSkin and
System.PatternSkinCustomization.
At the
Foswiki website you can find more resources. A good place to start exploring is the
Foswiki:Support.AdministratorsCookBook which offers tips and tricks for customizing your Foswiki site. Many of these are best done before any content has been added to your site, so immediately after installation is a good time to consider the possibilities.
Left, Top and Bottom Bars with PatternSkin
The top bar and bottom bar are common across all webs.
To customize the top bar, copy
System.WebTopBarExample
to
System.WebTopBar?
, and make your desired changes to
System.WebTopBar
.
To customize the bottom bar, copy
System.WebBottomBarExample
to
System.WebBottomBar?
, and make your desired changes to
System.WebBottomBar
.
The side bar can be customized on a per web basis. To customize the side bar, copy the
WebLeftBarExample
topic in the given web to
WebLeftBar
, and make your desired changes to
WebLeftBar
. If you would like to move the side bar to the right of the page, see
System.PatternSkin for more details.
Copyright, License and Classification Statements
At the bottom of each topic, there is a copyright statement that is set in the
WEBCOPYRIGHT
preference. Its default is the following:
Copyright © by the contributing authors. All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.
If your Foswiki site is used in an environment without public access you should replace this with your normal copyright notice. You should also consider adding a security classification (e.g., For Internal Use Only) so people do not have to add this manually to every new topic.
If your Foswiki site is publicly accessible, you need to decide which copyright and license you wish to apply to all contributions. For open source applications, licenses such as
the GNU Free Documentation License,
FreeBSD Documentation License, and one of the various
Creative Commons licenses are possible licenses to consider. Remember that once people have started contributing, you cannot retroactively change the license (unless it has a provision for this).
To change the copyright statement, perform the following steps:
- Copy the
WEBCOPYRIGHT
preference setting from System.DefaultPreferences
to Main.SitePreferences
. Change the value to your desired text. This value will be your new default across all webs.
- You can create a unique message for a specific web by setting the
WEBCOPYRIGHT
preference in the WebPreferences
topic for the given web. For example, you could add a confidential classification to a web that has restricted access.
- The
WEBCOPYRIGHT
preference setting in System.WebPreferences
covers the documentation that comes with Foswiki, and should not be changed.
WYSIWYG vs Raw Edit
In Foswiki, the WYSIWYG editor is used by default in edit mode. An
Edit Raw link is available for those who prefer to edit the raw topic text.
If you prefer to use the raw text editor by default and have a separate WYSIWYG button, as in TWiki 4.1, then you can modify the templates that define the edit screen as described in
Foswiki:Support.FaqHowToMakeRawEditDefault.
Installing extensions
Foswiki:Extensions is an extensive library of
plugins for Foswiki that enhance functionality in a huge number of ways. A few plugins are pre-installed in the Foswiki distribution.
In the
Extensions section of the
configure
page, you can select the
Find More Extensions button to download and install additional plugins from the foswiki.org website. If you are behind a firewall or your server has no access to the Internet, you can also install plugins manually. Installation instructions for each plugin are located in its corresponding topic on
http://foswiki.org/. Additional documentation on Foswiki plugins can be found at
Foswiki:Support.PluginsSupplement.
Plugins are activated in the
Plugins section of the
configure
page. In addition, some plugins are also configured in this section.
TWiki Compatibility
Foswiki is 100% backwards compatible with TWiki
® markup up to and including TWiki 4.2.4. Existing TWiki webs, topics and attachments can be used with Foswiki without requiring any changes.
To support a seamless upgrade from TWiki, Foswiki ships with a plugin called
TWikiCompatibilityPlugin
. This plugin enables most TWiki extensions to work with Foswiki, without modifications. It also maps requests for legacy TWiki web topics to their Foswiki equivalents, as defined in
Foswiki:Development.TopicNameMappingTable. The
TWIKIWEB
and
MAINWEB
TWiki variables are also mapped to the new Foswiki macros
SYSTEMWEB
and
USERSWEB
.
If you are not upgrading an existing TWiki installation and do not plan to install plugins from the TWiki web site, it is recommended that you disable the TWikiCompatibilityPlugin in the
Plugins Section on the
configure
page.
If a plugin exists both in a TWiki version and a Foswiki version, it is strongly recommended that you use the Foswiki version, as this is coded to work optimally with Foswiki. As part of the Foswiki project, the Foswiki community is evaluating all of the extensions that are available for TWiki, and porting them over to the Foswiki name space. Many of them are being enhanced through the removal of bugs and security vulnerabilities, resulting in better, more functional extensions for Foswiki.
Troubleshooting
Re-run the
configure
script and make sure you have resolved all errors and are satisfied that you understand any warnings.
Failing that, consult the topics at
Foswiki:Support.SupplementalDocuments and
Foswiki:Support.AskedQuestions.
If you need help, ask a question in the
Foswiki:Support web or on
Foswiki:Community.InternetRelayChat (irc.freenode.net, channel #foswiki).
Foswiki system requirements
Foswiki is capable of running on a variety of operating systems and supporting a wide range of browsers, due to its minimal client and server requirements.
Server requirements
Foswiki is written in Perl 5, which is supported on Microsoft Windows as well as Unix and Unix-like systems (including Linux and OSX), on which it uses a number of shell commands and
RCS (Revision Control System), a GNU Free Software package. It should be able to run on any server platform that meets the following requirements.
Resource |
Required Server Environment |
Perl |
5.8.4 or higher is recommended. Foswiki will run in perl 5.6.1 but only with Wysiwyg editor disabled. Wysiwyg requires Unicode support which is provided by perl 5.8.1 onwards. |
RCS |
5.7 or higher (including GNU diff ) Optional. Foswiki includes a pure perl implementation of RCS (RcsLite) that can be used instead, at the cost of performance |
GNU diff |
GNU diff 2.7 or higher is required when not using the all-Perl RcsLite. Install within the PATH if not included with RCS (check version with diff -v ) Must be the version used by RCS, to avoid problems with binary attachments - RCS may have hard-coded path to diff |
Other external programs |
fgrep, egrep |
Cron/scheduler |
• Unix: cron • Windows: cron equivalents |
Web server |
Apache is well supported; for information on other servers, see Foswiki:Support.InstallingOnSpecificPlatforms. |
Required CPAN modules
Most of the
CPAN libraries listed below are part of a standard Perl installation. See
Foswiki:Support.HowToInstallCpanModules for detailed information on how to install any CPAN libraries not present in your installation.
The following Perl CPAN modules are used by Foswiki:
Module |
Preferred version |
Algorithm::Diff (included with Foswiki) |
|
CGI |
Versions 2.89 and 3.37 must be avoided. Most version from 3.15 and onwards should work. |
CGI::Carp |
>=1.26 |
CGI::Session |
>=4.30 (included with Foswiki) Versions 4.20 and before have Foswikitask:Item1306 |
Config |
>=0 |
Cwd |
>=3.05 |
Data::Dumper |
>=2.121 |
Error (included) |
|
File::Copy |
>=2.06 |
File::Find |
>=1.05 |
File::Spec |
>=3.05 |
FileHandle |
>=2.01 |
IO::File |
>=1.10 |
Text::Diff (included with Foswiki) |
|
Time::Local |
>=1.11 |
You can check version numbers from the command line (replace "ModuleName" with the name of the module):
perl -le 'use ModuleName; print "ModuleName"->VERSION'
Optional CPAN modules
The following Perl modules may be used by Foswiki. See
Foswiki:Support.HowToInstallCpanModules for detailed information on how to install CPAN libraries.
Module |
Preferred version |
Description |
Archive::Tar |
|
May be required by the Extensions Installer in configure if command line tar or unzip is not available |
CGI::Cookie |
>=1.24 |
Used for session support |
Digest::base |
|
|
Digest::SHA1 |
|
|
Jcode |
|
Used for I18N support with perl 5.6 |
Locale::Maketext::Lexicon |
>=0 |
Used for I18N support |
Net::SMTP |
>=2.29 |
Used for sending mail |
Unicode::Map |
|
Used for I18N support with perl 5.6 |
Unicode::Map8 |
|
Used for I18N support with perl 5.6 |
Unicode::MapUTF8 |
|
Used for I18N support with perl 5.6 |
Unicode::String |
|
Used for I18N support with perl 5.6 |
URI |
|
Used for configure |
Most of these modules will probably already be present 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 (replace "ModuleName" with the name of the module):
perl -e 'use ModuleName; print $ModuleName::VERSION."\n"'
Client requirements
Browser clients must support the following capabilities:
- HTML 3.2
- Cookie support enabled, if persistent sessions are required
Most skins also require CSS and Javascript support. There is a low-fat skin (
Plain) that minimises these requirements. Some skins require newer browser version. 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 in the
skin browser and more at
Foswiki:Extensions.SkinPackage.
Uploading the Foswiki distribution to your web server host
If you cannot unpack the Foswiki distribution directly in your installation directory, you can unpack the distribution on your local computer, 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 Foswiki 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
lib
directory at the same level as the bin
directory. You can create this directory elsewhere and configure the bin/setlib.cfg
file. Foswiki dir: | What it is: | Where to copy: | Example: |
foswiki | start-up pages | root Foswiki dir | /home/smith/public_html/foswiki/ |
foswiki/bin | CGI bin | CGI-enabled dir | /home/smith/public_html/foswiki/bin |
foswiki/lib | library files | same level as bin | /home/smith/public_html/foswiki/lib |
foswiki/locale | language files | dir secure from public access | /home/smith/public_html/foswiki/locale |
foswiki/pub | public files | htdoc enabled dir | /home/smith/public_html/foswiki/pub |
foswiki/data | topic data | dir secure from public access | /home/smith/public_html/foswiki/data |
foswiki/templates | web templates | dir secure from public access | /home/smith/public_html/foswiki/templates |
foswiki/tools | Foswiki utlilities | dir secure from public access | /home/smith/public_html/foswiki/tools |
| foswiki/working
| Temporary and internal files | dir secure from public access | /home/smith/public_html/foswiki/working
|
Configuring Foswiki manually (without using the configure
page)
It is highly recommended that you configure Foswiki by using your browser to access the
configure
page. However, if you are unable to get the
configure
page to display (for example, if a dependency is missing), or for some reason you do not wish to use the
configure
page, then you can configure Foswiki manually
Perform the following steps to manually configure Foswiki:
- Copy the file
lib/Foswiki.spec
to lib/LocalSite.cfg
- Remove the # in front of the following settings, and ensure that they are set to the correct values:
$Foswiki::cfg{DefaultUrlHost}
$Foswiki::cfg{ScriptUrlPath}
$Foswiki::cfg{PubUrlPath}
$Foswiki::cfg{PubDir}
$Foswiki::cfg{TemplateDir}
$Foswiki::cfg{DataDir}
$Foswiki::cfg{LocalesDir}
$Foswiki::cfg{OS}
- Make sure the following settings are defined:
$Foswiki::cfg{LoginManager}
$Foswiki::cfg{WebMasterEmail}
$Foswiki::cfg{SMTP}{MAILHOST}
$Foswiki::cfg{SMTP}{SENDERHOST}
Related Topics: AdminDocumentationCategory,
Foswiki:Support.SupplementalDocuments
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