[pmwiki-users] Minor question regarding the definition of "Wiki farm"

[christian.ridderstrom at gmail.com]

On Sun, 19 Mar 2006, H. Fox wrote:

> On 3/19/06, christian.ridderstrom at gmail.com
> <christian.ridderstrom at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I've been too busy to follow the recent (long) discussion and have only
> > just now read it - I greatly appreciate the effort by everyone!
> >
> > Quoting (Neil's work?) at http://pmwiki.org/wiki/PmWiki/WikiFarms
> >
> >         A WikiFarm is a collection of two or more wikis running on the
> >         same web server and sharing a set of common components.
> >
> > I wonder: Why does a wiki farm have to have two or more wikis?
> >
> > The phrasing above implies to me that it's not possible to have a wiki
> > farm *installation* with only a single wiki, which you can of course.
> > Could we come up with a slightly different definition which says something
> > more along the lines of:
> >
> >         A WikiFarm is a way to run one or more wikis on a single web
> >         server, where the wikis share a set of common components.
> >
> > Or am I missing something conecptually here?
> 
> Short answer:
>  A wikifarm with one wiki is like a server farm with one server. 
> It's, possible, but it's beside the point.

No not really...  The first definition of a wiki farm implies it must have
two or more wikis, which is incorrect although not a big deal in itself.  
Running a single wiki in a wiki farm framework is easy and I know this,
but others might think it's impossible.

> Another short answer:
> It's a bit confusing that way because one wiki, by definition, doesn't
> share anything.

Good point. How about something like this then?

	A WikiFarm is a way to run one or more wikis from a single 
	installation of the PmWiki engine.

> * Unzip the PmWiki software somewhere outside the web document tree.
> * Move the pub/ directory to somewhere within the web document tree
> ("in the web space").
> * Add a local/farmconfig.php and set $FarmPubDirUrl to the URL of the
> pub/ directory.
> * Create one wiki using "the four steps":
>   1. Create a directory (in the web space, of course).
>   2. Add a wrapper script that points to pmwiki.php.
>   3. Add a local configuration file. (Optional.)
>   4. Let the PmWiki engine create a wiki.d/ directory for page storage.

Hmm... I tried a version of the above in order to get to another point, 
but for some reason it doesn't work at step 4. I was expecting PmWiki to 
ask me to do a chmod, but I just get a blank screen?

Here's what I did:

cd /home/chr
svn co svn://pmwiki.org/pmwiki/tags/latest pmwiki
mkdir public_html/test
mv pmwiki/pub public_html/test/pub
cd pmwiki/local
echo '<?php $FarmPubDirUrl="http://wwww.lyx.org/~chr/test/pub";'>farmconfig.php 
cd ~chr/public_html/test
echo '<?php include("/home/chr/pmwiki/pmwiki.php");' > pmwiki.php


I know that both pmwiki.php-files are executed, but I just get a blank 
screen. Could someone else try my exact sequence and let me know what 
breaks here?

/Christian

-- 
Christian Ridderström, +46-8-768 39 44               http://www.md.kth.se/~chr