ikiwiki/ rcs/ Git

Git is a distributed revison control system originally developed for the Linux kernel. Ikiwiki supports storing a wiki in git.

Ikiwiki can run as a post-update hook to update a wiki whenever commits come in. When running as a cgi with Git, ikiwiki automatically commits edited pages, and uses the Git history to generate the RecentChanges page.

git repository setup

The suggested setup for git is a set of repositories setup like a shallow, single level tree, with a bare repository (meaning that it does not have a working tree checked out) at the root, and various working clones (with working directories) as leaf nodes. The root (bare) repository is meant to be pushed to and pulled from the various working clones. The image below displays the relationship between the root repository and the clone repositories (this is not a directory layout):

Git repository relationships

One of the leaf node clone repositories is special; it has working directory which is used to compile the wiki from, and is also used by the cgi to commit changes made via the web interface. It is special since the post-commit hook for the bare root repository is used to trigger an update of this repository, and then an ikiwiki refresh updates the published wiki itself.

The other (optional) leaf node repositories are meant for you to work on, and commit to, changes should then be pushed to the bare root repository. In theory, you could work on the same leaf node repository that ikiwiki uses to compile the wiki from, and the cgi commits to, as long as you ensure that permissions and ownership don't hinder the working of the cgi. This can be done, for example, by using ACL's, in practice, it is easier to just setup separate clones for yourself.

So, to reiterate, when using Git, you probably want to set up three repositories:

Using three or more of repositories isn't the most obvious set up, but it works the best for typical ikiwiki use. ikiwiki-makerepo can automate setting this up for the common case where there is no pre-existing wiki. Laptop wiki with git describes a different way to set up ikiwiki and git.

It is paramount that you never push to the non-bare repository (this FAQ entry explains why). Instead, clone the bare repository as mentioned above, and push only to the bare repository.

The ikiwiki post-commit hook should be put in the bare repository.

git repository with multiple committers

It can be tricky to get the permissions right to allow multiple people to commit to an ikiwiki git repository. As the security page mentions, for a secure ikiwiki installation, only one person should be able to write to ikiwiki's srcdir. When other committers make commits, their commits should go to the bare repository, which has a post-update hook that uses ikiwiki to pull the changes to the srcdir.

One setup that will work is to put all committers in a group (say, "ikiwiki"), and use permissions to allow that group to commit to the bare git repository. Make both the post-update hook and ikiwiki.cgi be setgid to the group, as well as suid to the user who admins the wiki. The wrappergroup setup file option can be used to make the wrappers be setgid to the right group. Then the srcdir, including its git repository, should only be writable by the wiki's admin, and not by the group. Take care that ikiwiki uses a umask that does not cause files in the srcdir to become group writable. (umask 022 will work.)

Optionally using a local wiki to preview changes

When working on the "working clones" to add content to your wiki, it is common (but optional) practice to preview your changes using a private wiki on the local host before publishing the updates by sending it to the root repository. If you do want to setup a private wiki, you will have to have another setup file and and an ikiwiki installation on your local machine. You will need all the packages this implies -- a web server, git, ikiwiki, etc. However, there is a caveat: by default, ikiwiki pulls and pushes from origin. This is not ideal for the working clones on the local machine, since you might go through several iterations of a page before pushing to the bare root of the repository tree (and thus publishing it on your public wiki). You do not want the action of refreshing the local wiki in order to review your work to accidentally publish the contents before you are ready. In order to prevent the git push that is the normal behaviour of ikiwiki, set the configuration of the local wiki:

  gitorigin_branch => "",
  ## git post-commit wrapper
  wrapper => "/working/dir/.git/hooks/post-commit",

Then just committing should refresh the private ikiwiki on the local host. Now just run ikiwiki -setup localwiki.setup -getctime and you should be good to go. (You only need the slow -getctime option the first time you run setup.) Use standard git commands to handle pulling from and pushing to the server. Note: Currently, after pulling changes from the bare root repository, you will need to manually update the local wiki, with a command such as ikiwiki -setup localwiki.setup -refresh. This is because git 1.5.4 doesn't have a hook that is run locally after pulling changes. Newer versions of git will have a post-merge hook that should work for this purpose.