I was asked on Friday night if I could make a demo foswiki USB system, and given that its high time we did one, I started to look into it. Initially I thought this would be a great oportunity to try out the HTTPEngine work Gilmar has been doing, but we’re not quite there yet. And so, I started a quick perusal of the existing WebServer on a Stick systems. Ideally, I want to use Strawberry perl, apache, and have the server and a browser start up automatically when the USB stick is inserted into the computer.
MicroApache
Server2Go
XAMPP
MicroApache was the first thing i looked at, as the contact pointed out DokuWikiOnAStick, but that server doesn’t seem to have source, nor is the upstream web site there (last release seems to be 2007, so too old for Strawberry perl too) Server2Go looks nice, but as its not really free in the debian sense, I’ll pass on that unless nothing else works. XAMPP – unzipped it, foswiki and did some minor configurations. unziped, removed everything except apache, added strawberry perl, and wrote a systray icon and menu system for you to control it with. TADA! FoswikiOnAStick v0.1v0.3 (running foswiki 1.0.6). please try it out.
unzip it to the root of your USB key (or any drive)
start the systray app, web server and browser using start_foswiki.bat (goto http://localhost/ if the browser doesn’t start) (unblock / allow apache to get through the windows firewall)
before ejecting the usb key, you need to stop the webserver by running stop_foswiki.bat yes, thats all. Please report any issues or observations to me – SvenDowideit@fosiki.com
the web server runs at the standard port 80, so if there is already a web server running it will fail
when the web server starts, it will probably be blocked by Windows firewall – every time I’ve tested, a dialog pops up, and allows you to unblock it.
….
Warning
I have made no attempt (yet) to reduce the accesses to the disk – so it may use up all the blue smoke in your usbkey, cause your bits to turn green, or one of many other unforseen side effects which may or may not appear amusing if they happen to someone else. I’ve tested this on Windows7rc, Windows Vista, Windows2003server, and Windows XP – if it works for you, excellent :).
I was just asked on IRC how to protect some attachments without forcing all requested attachments to go through the viewfile cgi script (as that causes your foswiki images and css to load incredibly slowly), and here’s the howto I answered with:
I was just asked on IRC how to protect some attachments without forcing all requested attachments to go through the viewfile cgi script (as that causes your foswiki images and css to load incredibly slowly), and here’s the howto I answered with:
I coded foswiki 1.0’s viewfile script to work as an apache ErrorDocument, so If you can find a way to trigger a 404 or 401 error, you can get apache to run viewfile –
If you place your pub dir somewhere outside where apache serves files and then softlink the non-protected webs into apache’s path (so it serves them full speed), then the secured webs will generate a 404, triggering the viewfile ErrorDocument – which will thus serve the file only to authenticated users
This will work irrespective of the authentication choices in your foswiki setup – and as the files that require securing are outside apache’s file serving areas, can be considered as secure as possible.
As an added bonus, any request to a file that does not exist will show a foswiki error page, rather than a static html.
I’ve been working on expanding the use of Foswiki Applications and in the process began to build (using TML) a much more usable user interface for configuring and managing your Foswiki.
So – to the picture show 🙂
Easy to access over-view Quickly customise your Foswiki site.
Admin friendly selection of visual settings
Many of these features already do work in Foswiki 1.0.4 – by installing FoswikiApplications Contrib, but they are a work in progress – and getting more advanced every week.
Foswiki 1.0.4 has been released with more than 100 bug fixes and some small enhancements. Upgrading is highly recommended. If you did not upgrade from TWiki yet, now is a good time as Foswiki 1.0.4 fixes more around 300 bugs relative to TWiki 4.2.4.
Grab it now from : http://foswiki.org/Download/WebHome – the straight and upgrade archives, OSX installer and my Windows Installers are here.
My debian package repository now spans Foswiki 1.0.4 and 168 Foswiki extensions – its never been easier to install 🙂
OR (if theearth.li doesn’t work for you)
wget http://fosiki.com/Foswiki_debian/FoswikiReleaseGpgKey.asc
apt-key add FoswikiReleaseGpgKey.asc
apt-get update
apt-get install apache2 foswiki
This repository contains about 281 (Apr2011) foswiki-extensions – auto updated nightly direct from foswiki.org. The packages have as many dependencies as I was able to coerce my build scripts to work out – but there is more work needed.
In just 10 weeks, the Foswiki project has re-built the project infrastructure, fixed an additional 100 bugs over and beyond those we fixed in the TWiki source repository before the fork, moved to a new web application architecture (FSA) and undertaken a detailed security audit, fixing at their roots a large number of potential exploits.
Windows installer, Debian packages including Extensions, OSX installer, Virtual machine.
In just 10 weeks, the Foswiki project has re-built the project infrastructure, fixed an additional 100 bugs over and beyond those we fixed in the TWiki source repository before the fork, moved to a new web application architecture (FSA) and undertaken a detailed security audit, fixing at their roots a large number of potential exploits.
Additionally, we already have the following easy installers:
Windows Installer – I’ve built an installer using Apache 2.2 and Strawberry Perl, making it possible to install Perl dependencies.
OSX Leopard installer – Matthias Wientapper has built an pkg
Debian and Ubuntu linux – I’ve ported my TWiki package builder to Foswiki, and now have a live updated (nightly) Debian repository containing Foswiki v1.0.0 and 105 of the 109 Extensions uploaded to http://foswiki.org/Extensions
Virtual machine image – Eugen Mayer has built a virtual machine, with detailed instructions for use with Virtual Box and VMWare.
So given the over 1800 commits in 10 weeks, a release, and much much more, It seems to me that Foswiki is a success..
