HelpOnConfiguration

The moinmoin wiki engine is capable of handling multiple wikis using a single installation, a single set of configuration files and a single server process. Especially for persistent environments like Twisted, this is necessary, because the Twisted server will permanently run on a specific IP address and TCP port number. So for virtual hosting of multiple domains (wikis) on the same IP and port, we need the wiki engine to permanently load multiple configs at the same time and choose the right of them when handling a request for a specific URL.

To be able to choose the right config, moin uses config variable wikis located in the file farmconfig.py - it simply contains a list of pairs (wikiname, url-regex). Please only use valid python identifiers for wikiname (to be exact: identifier ::= (letter|"_") (letter | digit | "_")* - just try with a simple word if you didn't understand that grammar rule). When processing a request for some URL, moin searches through this list and tries to match the url-regex against the current URL. If it doesn't match, it simply proceeds to the next pair. If it does match, moin loads a configuration file named <wikiname>.py (usually from the same directory) that contains the configuration for that wiki.

farmconfig.py in the distribution archive has some sample entries for a wiki farm running multiple wikis. You need to adapt it to match your needs if you want to run multiple wikis.

$/!\$ For simpler writing of these help pages, we will call such a <wikiname>.py configuration file simply wikiconfig.py, of course you have to use the filename you chose.

Of course you have already adapted the wikis setting in farmconfig.py (see above), so we only give some hints how you can save some work. Please also read the single wiki configuration hints, because it explains config inheritance.

We now use the class-based configuration to be able to configure the common settings of your wikis at a single place: in the base configuration class (see farmconfig.py for an example):

farmconfig.py:

# -*- coding: iso-8859-1 -*-
# farmconfig.py:
from MoinMoin.config.multiconfig import DefaultConfig
class FarmConfig(DefaultConfig):
    url_prefix = '/wiki'
    show_hosts = True
    underlay_dir = '/where/ever/common/underlay'
    # ...

Explanation:
- first we import the default config, like we do when configuring a single wiki
- now we define a new farm config class - and inherit from the default config
- then we change everything that our farm wikis have in common, leaving out the settings that they need to be different
- this FarmConfig class will now be used by the config files of the wikis instead of moin's internal DefaultConfig class, see below:

The configs of your individual wikis then only keep the settings that need to be different (like the logo, or the data directory or ACL settings). Everything else they get by inheriting from the base configuration class, see moinmaster.py for a sample.

moinmaster.py:

# -*- coding: iso-8859-1 -*-
# moinmaster.py:
from farmconfig import FarmConfig
class Config(FarmConfig):
    show_hosts = False
    sitename = u'MoinMaster'
    interwikiname = 'MoinMaster'
    data_dir = '/org/de.wikiwikiweb.moinmaster/data/'
    # ...

Explanation:
- see single wiki configuration, the only difference is that we inherit from FarmConfig (that inherited from DefaultConfig) instead of directly using DefaultConfig
- now we override show_hosts to be False - we want it for most wikis in our farm, but not for this one
- we also override sitename, interwikiname and data_dir (the usual stuff)

Configuration of multiple wikis