Baltz Family Web - Installation

Here are some quick instructions on how to download and install Pm Wiki 2.0. Improvements to these instructions would be greatly appreciated.

Windows/IIS users may wish to take a look at Installation Win32 ? for more help with installation.

1. Download the latest version of Pm Wiki from http://www.pmwiki.org/pub/pmwiki-devel/.

2. Extract the tar image using "tar zxvf pmwiki-''version''.tgz" (note that the tar file has to be extracted with the proper permissions set... see the note at the end of this page for more.). This will create a pmwiki-x.y.z directory which contains the Pm Wiki software. Rename this directory to "pmwiki" by executing "mv pmwiki-x.y.z pmwiki" . The files in this directory include:

    COPYING            The GNU General Public License
    local/             A directory for local configuration scripts
    pmwiki.php         Main Pm Wiki script
    pub/               Directory of publicly accessible files
      css/             Directory for generic .css files
      skins/           Directory of layout templates?
    sample-config.php  A sample configuration file
    scripts/           Some scripts that extend the possibilities of Pm Wiki
    wikilib.d/         Directory containing some default Pm Wiki files

These files need to be placed where they can be accessed by a web server (e.g. in a public_html directory of some sort).

3. Open a web browser to the pmwiki.php script. Pm Wiki will then attempt to create the wiki.d directory for holding wiki pages with the appropriate ownerships and permissions. This step will likely fail, but if it works then you can proceed to step 4 below.

3a. If you get an error message stating that Pm Wiki is unable to create the wiki.d directory, you need to temporarily change the permissions on the directory containing the pmwiki.php file to 2777. In Unix this is commonly done by changing to the directory containing pmwiki.php and executing the command "chmod 2777 ." (note the dot at the end). This will (1) make the directory writable so the web server can create the data directory it needs for the wiki files, and (2) preserve group ownership of the directory so the installer account can manipulate the files created in this directory.

3b. If your system doesn't allow changing permissions to 2777, then try 777 permissions instead.

3c. After changing the directory permissions, try opening a browser to the pmwiki.php script again. If all is well, the wiki.d directory will have been created and you'll see the default home page.

4. If you're running Apache version 2.0.30 or later, you may need to set the AcceptPathInfo directive to "on" for the pmwiki.php script. This can be as simple as adding

    AcceptPathInfo on

to either the .htaccess file in the directory containing pmwiki.php or the server's httpd.conf file. If changing the httpd.conf file, don't forget to restart Apache to have the change take effect.

For more on this issue, see Accept Path Info ?.

5. Check out Initial Setup Tasks for other tasks you may want to perform to begin customizing your Pm Wiki installation. You might also want to peruse the Release Notes for further information.

(Note: It is important that the tar file (*.tar) is unpacked with the proper permissions set. For *nix operating systems, please check your permission mask by typing umask at the command-line. If it says anything other than "2", you'll need to change the permission mask by typing umask 002 at the command-line. Then unpack the tar file. If you do not do this the pmwiki.php script will not be able to make use of other files in the tree.)

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