Installing XWiki

A Wiki Clone

What is a Wiki?

The specific purpose of a wiki is up to the administrator or organization creating it. In general, though:

• A wiki is a collaborative website that users can easily modify via the web
• A wiki allows anyone, using a web browser, to edit, delete and modify content that has been placed on the site

Intended Audience

Anyone wanting to set up a wiki will find this document useful.

This document takes the reader through the setup steps of installing a wiki clone called XWiki. Extensive technical experience is not required, but the reader should have basic computer knowledge and be able to move files from one directory to another, use a web browser, move through installation prompts.

Setting Up XWiki

In addition to setting up the XWiki itself, other components must be installed to support XWiki. This presentation includes instructions for obtaining, installing and testing all of these components:

• Java SDK 1.4.2
• Tomcat v 4.1
• MySQL Database
• XWiki Software

Install Java SDK 1.4.2

Installation:

• Go to Java SDK download page
• Under the bar labeled "J2SE v 1.4.2_11 SDK includes the JVM technology", select the link labeled Download J2SE SDK
• Accept license agreement
• Choose the "Windows Offline Installation" link and download the installer to your desktop
• When the download is complete, run the installer, accepting all default settings

Test Java SDK 1.4.2

Test Java SDK Installation:

• Double click on "Java Web Start" icon
• Launch any of the test applications installed with the SDK
• If the program launches properly, the Java SDK is operational

Install Tomcat 4.1

• Go to Tomcat 4.1 download page
• From the left column, under Ex-Jakarta, click on Tomcat link
• Download binary version - 4.1.31.exe
• To install, double click on 4.1.31.exe icon
• Follow defaults to install

Test Tomcat 4.1

• To test, go to:
• Windows Start button=>
• All Programs menu=>
• Apache Tomcat 4.1=>
• Start Tomcat
• Open a browser and go to: http://localhost:8080
• You will see Tomcat introductory page

Install MySQL

• Go to MySQL Server download page
• Click on "Pick a Mirror" on the Windows X86 bar
• Click on the http link
• Install per defaults
• From the Start button, launch the MySQL command line utility
• To test installation, make sure you can get to a help page by typing \h. This ensures that the database is running

Setting Up The XWiki Database

XWiki requires a dedicated database. To create the database, perform the following two steps, using the MySQL command line utility.

• Create a database with the name xwiki
• Create a user, xwiki, with password, xwiki, and give it access to the database, xwiki

Create XWiki Database

The next two steps entail issuing sql commands to MySQL. SQL stands for Structured Query Language. SQL is the basic language used for communicating with databases.

• To create the XWiki database, type the following command at the prompt in the MySQL command line utility exactly as it is shown below:
create database xwiki;

Creating XWiki User

Now that there is an XWiki database, it requires a default user to receive commands and write data to its tables. That user will be the XWiki user. As with the last step, this user is created using an SQL command.

• From the command line utility, type the following command on a single line exactly as shown:
  GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON xwiki.* TO xwiki@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'xwiki';

Obtaining XWiki Database Tables

• Go to XWiki download page
• Download the database tables by clicking on:
MySQL4 Database as a MySql dump

Installing Sample Data

In earlier steps, you created the xwiki database and user, but the database has no structure or tables.

The file you downloaded with in the last step is on your desktop in a zipped file named xwiki-db-0.9.2. Inside of that zipped folder is a single file named xwiki-db-0.9.2.sql. This file is an SQL script. The script contains multiple SQL commands to create all of the tables for the XWiki database.

You can run a single command that will tell MySQL to read this file and perform all of the SQL commands it contains.

Installing the Sample Data - Cont.

• Extract the xwiki-db-0.9.2.sql file from the zip folder and rename it xwiki.sql
• Move the xwiki.sql file to the MySQL bin directory
(c:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 4.1\bin)
• Read the xwiki.sql file into the XWiki database by running the following two commands from the MySQL command line utility:
use database xwiki; source xwiki.sql

Check the Database

Check to see if the database has been updated.

• From the MySQL command line, enter the following command exactly as shown:
show tables;

This will give you a list of the tables XWiki is using.

Obtaining XWiki War File

• Go to XWiki download page
• Click on the "War File" link on one of the mirrors
• Copy the xwiki.war file to the Tomcat/webapps directory

Final Steps

• Launch Tomcat
• Go to the XWiki welcome page:
http://localhost:8080/xwiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome
• Click on Login: (Upper right corner of screen)
• Login as Admin, with password of Admin
• Click on "Edit This Page"
• The XWiki is ready to use!