Index

Contents

  1. Requirements
  2. Preparation
    1. Installing IIS
    2. Installing Python
    3. Installing MoinMoin
  3. Creating a Wiki Instance
    1. IIS 6.0 (Windows Server 2003)
  4. Troubleshooting

Requirements

Before you install MoinMoin, make sure you have the necessary infra-structure in place, namely the Internet Information Services webserver (any version should be OK), and a Python installation (version 2.3 is required, the latest python release is recommended).

In the following description, we assume that you have installed or will install things to these locations:

Quite often, you might want to install things elsewhere, which is no problem at all; you just have to adapt any paths that appear in a command or config file to the locations you have chosen.

This installation procedure was tested with IIS 5.1 for Windows running on Windows XP SP2, using Python 2.4.

Preparation

Installing IIS

From Microsoft: (http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/en/server/iis/)

Make sure that your webserver runs without problems before you start to install MoinMoin; problems with your webserver installation are not in the scope of this document.

Installing Python

Download Python 2.3.4 and install it. Python installation is done via a standard Windows installer program.

Alternatively, you may download the ActivePython distribution as a Microsoft Installer package.

Installing MoinMoin

Before creating a wiki instance, you have to download and install the basic MoinMoin software. We assume you already have downloaded the distribution archive to the "C:\TEMP" directory.

Open a console window and enter the following commands: 

C:
cd \temp
unzip moin-1.3.zip
cd moin-1.3
python setup.py install --prefix=C:\Moin --record=install.log

This will install all necessary files to the "C:\Moin" directory, and create a "install.log" file listing all the files that are created there.

Creating a Wiki Instance

Enter these commands in a console window from C:\Moin: 

md mywiki
md mywiki\data
md mywiki\underlay
xcopy share\moin\data mywiki\data /E
xcopy share\moin\underlay mywiki\underlay /E
copy share\moin\server\moin.cgi mywiki\
copy share\moin\config\wikiconfig.py mywiki\
copy share\moin\htdocs\index.html mywiki\default.htm

"mywiki" is the name of your wiki instance, you might want to chose a different name best fitting the intended use of this instance; just don't name it simply "wiki", because that would result in confusion and problems later on.

We have to make sure that moin.cgi can find the MoinMoin directory, so that "import MoinMoin" will work. The easiest way to make sure MoinMoin can be imported is to append to sys.path within moin.cgi.

You can change the first two lines of code in moin.cgi to something like this: 

   1 #!python
   2 import sys
   3 sys.path.append('C:/Moin/Lib/site-packages')

Notice that we're pointing to the directory which contains the MoinMoin directory, not the directory itself.

Next, you'll need to create two virtual directories in IIS. One for the shared data, and one for this specific wiki instance.

Go to Control Panel => Administrative Tools => Internet Information Service. Open up the tree to Default Web Site.

Right click on Default Web Site and choose New => Virtual directory. This will bring up a wizard with the mandatory useless first screen, hit next. Enter "wiki" for the alias name and hit next. Browse to "C:\Moin\share\moin\htdocs" and hit next. Leave the Access permissions at their defaults and hit next. And now you're done, hit finish!

Now follow the same steps, but set the alias to "mywiki" and the path to "C:\Moin\mywiki".

Use IIS Admin to remove permissions to read the data directory: expand the "mywiki" node, right click on data, select Properties, and uncheck Read. Repeat these steps with the underlay directory.

Now you need to setup the 'mywiki' alias so that it will run Python to interpret .cgi files. On Windows Server 2003, you will need to click the Create button under Application Settings to create an application space. Right click on your new 'mywiki' alias and choose Properties. On the first tab (Virtual Directory), click the Configuration button. The first tab is the App Mappings tab, which defines which programs to use for each file exetension. Click Add. Browse to your python.exe (probably something like c:\pythonXX\python.exe). Then add -u "%s" "%s" after the Python executable path. The Executable line will look something like this: "C:\Python22\python.exe" -u "%s" "%s". In the Extension box enter .cgi with the begining period. Make sure that the Check that file exists option is not checked (if it is, MoinMoin won't be able to display sub pages). Ok, you're done with the alias configuration, click OK several times to get back out of all the dialog boxes.

If you add another wiki instance, you'll only need to setup the reference to its folder, they can safely share the "wiki" alias which points to static files only.

That is all, try to access your new-born wiki with the URL "http://127.0.0.1/mywiki/". You should see the FrontPage, try to edit and save it, and if that works, see if your edit is reflected on the RecentChanges page.

Finally, edit "wikiconfig.py" and at least change "sitename" and "logo_string" to some personal values: 

sitename = u'My Wiki'
logo_string = u'<img src="/mywiki/images/mywiki-logo.gif" alt="MyWiki Logo">My Wiki'

Where "images" is a directory under your "mywiki" instance.

NOTE: The configuration variable "url_prefix" in "wikiconfig.py" should match the alias for "C:\Moin\share\moin\htdocs" or themes will not work ("/wiki" for the instructions above). This way, any reference in "wikiconfig.py" to "/wiki/something" will look in the shared data directory and a reference to "/mywiki/something" will look in the wiki instance directory. These are considered absolute paths because relative paths will not work correctly.

Since MoinMoin 1.3.5, it seems you need to change the Custom Errors setting for 404 before you can create new pages. You can accomplish this by performing the following steps:

  1. Go into the IIS Manager, right-click on 'mywiki' (or whatever your wiki instance directory is called), and select properties.

  2. Next, go to the Custom Errors tab and find the 404 entry, and click the Set to Default button.

IIS 6.0 (Windows Server 2003)

The instructions below also apply to IIS 6.0 but the more aggressive security settings in newer version of IIS disallow the usage of unknown CGI extensions. That means you will always get a 404 error unless you do this:

  1. Open IIS Manager by going to Start Menu->Programs->Administrative Tools->IIS Manager.

  2. Go to the Web Service Extensions folder.

  3. Under the Action menu, select Add a new Web service extension....

  4. For Extension name, give it a name such as .cgi or Python cgi or something.

  5. Under Required files click the Add... button and type in the exact command-line string you used above. Eg: c:\python24\python.exe -u "%s" "%s", then click the Ok button.

  6. Make sure the Set extension status to Allowed checkbox is checked and click the Ok button.

Another change that may be necessary if you are receiving HTTP Error 403 19 1314 while using IIS 6.0 is to adjust the Identity settings for the Application Pool that is being used by your site. The following steps assume you are adjusting the Default Web Site.

  1. Open IIS Manager by going to Start Menu->Programs->Administrative Tools->IIS Manager.

  2. Go to the Application Pool folder.

  3. Select the Application Pool you wish to adjust. (likely DefaultAppPool ) When you do this on the right you will see the Application pools for each site on the server. This will include a Description (likely Default Application )and a Path (<Default Web Site>). In this way you can be certain you are adjusting the appropriate Application Pool.

  4. With DefaultAppPool still selected right click and select Properties.

  5. Select the Identity tab and with Predefined clicked use the drop down box to change the Identity to Local System instead of Network Service.

    Please be aware that this is a workaround since you SHOULD set your group settings to allow Network Service to access the cgi scripts.

Under Windows Server 2003, you will also need to give your IUSR_MACHINENAME account Modify access to the mywiki\data and mywiki\underlay sub-directories, as file system permissions are more restricted by default than previous Windows versions.

Troubleshooting

If you see an error like "ImportError: No module named MoinMoin", it means that python cannot find MoinMoin. See above for how to add to sys.path.

If you see an error like Error 13: Permission Denied, it means that your web user permissions for the files do not have write/modify enabled.

If the page never loads after hitting Save Changes, you should check the permissions of the data directory. Make sure the IUSR_COMPUTERNAME user has modify permissions.

If some images like InterWiki and WorldWideWeb don't show up, it could have been because of incorrect permissions or a bad "url_prefix" in "wikiconfig.py" or the cached pages need to be updated by an Edit or deleting them in the data folder. Or you are using MS IE which has broken CSS :before support - try another browser.

If you see an error message like: 

Check your URL regular expressions in the "wikis" list in "farmconfig.py". Content-type: text/html;charset=utf-8
MoinMoin Configuration Error
Could not find a match for url: "servername/wikiname/moin.cgi?
Check your URL regular expressions in the "wikis" list in "farmconfig.py".

and you don't intend on using a serverfarm, remove the farmconfig.py and farmconfig.pyc files and try again. The error message shouldn't appear when you refresh the page.

If you are using URLScan, you might have to add the following setting in the file %SystemRoot%\system32\inetsrv\urlscan\urlscan.ini: 

[options]
AllowHighBitCharacters=1