ikiwiki/ tips/ laptop wiki with git

Using ikiwiki with the git backend, some interesting things can be done with creating mirrors (or, really, branches) of a wiki. In this tip, I'll assume your wiki is located on a server, and you want to take a copy with you on your laptop.

With the configuration described here, you can commit local changes to the version on the laptop, perhaps while offline. You can browse and edit the wiki using a local web server. When you're ready, you can manually push the changes to the main wiki on the server.

## simple clone approach

First, set up the wiki on the server, if it isn't already. Nothing special needs to be done here, just follow the regular instructions in setup for setting up ikiwiki with git.

Next, `git clone` the source (`$REPOSITORY`, not `$SRCDIR`) from the server to the laptop.

Now you need to write a setup file for ikiwiki on the laptop. Mostly this is standard, but a few special settings are needed:

- Configure a cgi wrapper as usual, but configure the git wrapper to be written to the `post-commit` hook of the git clone, rather than the usual `post-update` hook.

  git_wrapper: /home/user/foo-wiki/.git/hooks/post-commit

- By default, ikiwiki pulls and pushes from `origin`. This shouldn't be done on the laptop, because the origin may not be accessible (when the laptop is offline). Also, commits made on the laptop should stay there, until manually pushed, so that the laptop can serve as a staging area.

  Make sure you have ikiwiki 2.11 or better installed, and set:

  gitorigin_branch:

- You can optionally enable to the mirrorlist plugin, and configure it so that each page links to the corresponding page on the server.

Now just run `ikiwiki --setup wiki.setup --getctime` and you should be good to go. (You only need the slow `-getctime` option the first time you run setup.) If you have taken your `wiki.setup` file from an existing wiki, you may need to change certain parameters to adapt to the paths on your laptop, a few examples:

    srcdir: /home/user/foo-wiki
    destdir: /home/user/public_html
    # optional
    url: http://foo-wiki.localhost
    libdir: /home/user/foo-wiki/.ikiwiki
    ENV:
        TMPDIR: /home/user/tmp
    cookiejar:
        file:

Now, set up a web server on your laptop, if it doesn't already have one. You can also skip that step if you want only to render the wiki and not allow edition, in which case you'll want the following:

    # disable CGI, unless you want to get really funky
    cgiurl:
    cgi_wrapper:

You can also direct people to the main server for web edition there.

Use standard git commands to handle pulling from and pushing to the server.

Note that if changes are pulled from the server, you will need to manually update the wiki, with a command such as `ikiwiki --setup wiki.setup --refresh`. If you'd like it to automatically update when changes are merged in, you can simply make a symlink `post-merge` hook pointing at the `post-update` hook ikiwiki created.

## bare mirror approach

As above, set up a normal ikiwiki on the server, with the usual bare repository.

Next, `git clone --mirror server:/path/to/bare/repository`

This will be used as the $REPOSITORY on the laptop. Then you can follow the instructions in setup by hand as per a normal ikiwiki installation. This means that you can clone from the local bare repository as many times as you want (thus being able to have a repository which is used by the ikiwiki CGI, and another which you can use for updating via git).

Use standard git commands, run in the laptop's bare git repository to handle pulling from and pushing to the server.