[pmwiki-users] Wiki farm confusion

H. Fox haganfox at users.sourceforge.net
Wed Mar 15 20:34:57 CST 2006


On 3/15/06, The Editor <editor at fast.st> wrote:
> On 3/15/06, Neil Herber <nospam at eton.ca> wrote:
> > I am not ready to buy your barn yet, nor am I ready to sell the farm
> > and give up on fields. You are absolutely right that the major
> > problem is imprecise or unnecessary use of the word "farm".
>
> Yes, this seems to be the problem. I found it confusing a bit myself
> at first. My bigger problem though was the details of switching over
> to a farm. Just needed a bit clearer doc's. (Thanks Pm for spotting my
> mistake).
>
> > To flog this dead horse one more time (and no, the horse was not in the barn!):
> > * A farm (or wiki farm) is a collection of two or more wiki fields
> > running on the same server that use one copy of the PmWiki code.
> > * A field is a single wiki with a unique URL. Each field lives in its
> > own directory.
> > * The "home field" is where most of the PmWiki code (particularly
> > pmwiki.php) lives.
>
> This is exacly how I understand it currently.  And I would buy Neil's
> (and other's) suggestions, that we simply refer to fields as wiki's,
> with one I suppose being the "home wiki." But Neil's comments does
> illustrate my point that a short-cut term like "barn" might simplify
> things once we got used to it.  Notice how Neils brief summary could
> be rewritten:
>
> #1 A farm is a collection of two or more fields sharing one barn.
> #2 A field is a single wiki with a unique URL, etc.
> #3 The home field is where the barn is found.
>
> The word "barn" is just a useful "markup" for "the place where most of
> the PmWiki code is found" in a "farm installation"

So far, I prefer "home wiki" to "home field".

I can only hear chirping crickets responding to my earlier question in
another thread about what to call a standalone installation's wiki
when a second wiki is installed using it as a base, but here's how I
look at it now (which may be different an hour from now):

Standalone wiki - A wiki installation with no farmconfig.php.
Wiki farm - An installation with a farmconfig.php that defines $FarmPubDirUrl.
Home installation - The base installation in a farm setup (a.k.a. a barn)
Home wiki - A wiki in a farm where $FarmPubDirUrl and $PubDirUrl are the same
Field wiki - A wiki in a farm where $FarmPubDirUrl and $PubDirUrl are different

Lets give these a workout, shall we?

You can turn a standalone wiki into a home wiki by installing a
farmconfig.php and adding a field wiki that uses the original
standalone wiki's files as its home installation.  You can convert the
home wiki to a field wiki by installing a second field, then moving
the data files over from the home wiki, then after some configuring
and renaming of directories you will have a home installation without
a home wiki, but with two field wikis.  Now you can move the home
installation out of the web document tree for a more secure
installation.

Now with "barn",

You can turn a standalone wiki into a barn wiki by installing a
farmconfig.php and adding a field wiki that uses the original
standalone wiki's files as its barn.  You can convert the barn wiki to
a field wiki by installing a second field, then moving the data files
over from the barn wiki, then after some configuring and renaming of
directories you will have a barn without a barn wiki, but with two
field wikis.  Now you can move the barn out of the web document tree
for a more secure installation.

I like the first one slightly better.

(I wold have repeated the exercise using "home field", but it's stuck
in my mind that home and field are mutually exclusive.)

Here's a note that appeared in my document draft.  It might provide
some food for thought on this subject:

    Just a note that a field wiki can have its own pub/ directory, and
    skins can also be placed there. The skins code will look first in
    the field's pub/skins/ directory, and then in the farm's pub/skins/
    directory. ... --Pm

That was news to me :-), but it points out one way in which a home
wiki and a field wiki differ.

Hagan




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