This document was provided by Dr. Yang Li documenting his experiences installing TiddlyWeb on a Windows Server. As installation of TiddlyWeb is an evolving process, so too should this document evolve. If you have suggestions for its improvement, please post at the Google Groups thread.
Step-by-Step Instructions for Setting Up TiddlyWeb in Windows
Client-Server Environment
Bridging
between Open Source and Commercial Software World
Author: Yang
Li, BT Research & Technology (upcoming book)
Contents
Step 1 Installation of Apache HTTP
Server
Step 3 Installation of mod_wsgi
Step 4 Installation of Setup Tools
Step 5 Installation of TiddlyWeb Packages
Step 6 Creation of TiddlyWeb Instance
Step 7 Mounting TiddlyWeb onto Apache HTTP Server
Step 8 Testing TiddlyWeb from Local Client
Step 9 Testing TiddlyWeb from Remote Client
Executive summary
TiddlyWeb is an extension of TiddlyWiki in the web environment. There are many applications that have been and are being built on top of the TiddlyWeb platform. As part of an open source software family, TiddlyWeb has spawned a sizeable user community, most of them are using Unix-family systems and tools. Whilst there do exist instructions and tips related to the installation of TiddlyWeb in Windows environment, these often appear to be random, lacking of a consistent and continuous account of installation flow. Furthermore, such instructions are often limited to local host, whereas a proper setting-up and use of TiddlyWeb often involves separated domains of clients and servers. This tutorial sets out to describe detailed instructions of installing TiddlyWeb in a cross-domain, client-server Windows environment. It aims to bridge between open source and commercial software communities, and targets at those who are new to TiddlyWeb, open source and Wndows.
The following sections describe the installation steps of TiddlyWeb. In each step, it describes where to find sources, how to install it and how to verify the success of installation. It is based on a real case study in which the author was approached to help install and roll out TiddlyWeb application in his business unit at BT. The server machine has Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition installed and the client machine uses Windows XP.
Search for “Apache HTTP Server Download” in Google, or visit http://httd.apache.org/download.cgi.
Choose Apache 2.2 and install it on Windows Server as a Windows service. Apache 2.2 is now installed under “E\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\http server 2.2”. You can choose a different installation directory, but in this example we use this directory.
To verify, click “Start”->”Administrative Tools”->”Services”, and search for the line starting with “Apache2.2”. If you can find it, then the installation of Apache HTTP server has been successful.
Search for “Python 2.6 download” in Google, or visit http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.6.4/
Choose Python 2.6 and install it on Windows Server. Python 2.6 is now installed under “E:\Python26”. You can choose a different installation directory, but in this example we use this directory.
In “Start”->”Control Panel”->”System”->”Advanced”->”Environment Variables”->”System Variables”, select “PATH” and edit it by adding “E\Python26;” to the front of PATH.
To verify, open a “Command Prompt” window, and type in “python”. If you can see Python command line, then the installation of Python is successful.
Search for “mod_wsgi-2.6” in Google, or visit http://code.google.com/p/modwsgi/downloads/detail?name=mod_wsgi-win32-ap22py26-2.6.so
Download mod_wsgi-win32-ap22py26-2.6.so, rename it to “mod_wsgi.so”, and copy it into directory “E:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\http server 2.2\modules” on Windows Server.
Open “httpd.config” file in directory “E:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\http server 2.2\conf”, and include this line “LoadModule wsgi_module modules/mod_wsgi.so” in the section “Dynamic Shared Object (DSO) Support”.
To verify, restart Apache HTTP Server in Windows Services, and open Apache HTTP Server Error Log File (“E:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\http server 2.2\logs\error.log). If you find such a message line “Apache/2.2.14 (win32) mod_wsgi/2.6 Python/2.6.4 configured”, then the installation of mod_wsgi is successful.
Search for “setuptools-0.6c11.win32-py2.6.exe” in Google, or visit http://pypi.python.org/pypi/setuptools#files.
Download setuptools-0.6c11.win32-py2.6.exe, and install it on Windows Server.
In “Start”->”Control Panel”->”System”->”Advanced”->”Environment Variables”->”System Variables”, select “PATH” and edit it by adding “E:\Python26\Scripts;” to the front of PATH.
To verify, move to directory “E:\Python26\Scripts” and look for “easy_install.exe”. If you can find it, then the installation of setup tools is successful.
Visit http://pypi.python.org/pypi, and manually search (you may only type in package name and ignore version in the search box) and download the following packages:
BeautifulSoup-3.1.0.1-py2.5
CherryPy-3.1.2-py2.5
WikklyText-1.6.0-py2.5
boodebr-1.5.0-py2.5
html5lib-0.11.1-py2.5
ply-3.3-py2.5
resolver-0.2.1-py2.5
selector-0.8.11-py2.5
setuptools-0.6c9-py2.5
simplejson-2.0.9-py2.5
tiddlyweb-0.9.75-py2.5
tiddlywebplugins
tiddlywebplugins.status-0.3-py2.5
tiddlywebplugins.wikklytextrender-0.3-py2.5
tiddlywebwiki-0.12.1-py2.5
wikklytext
wsgifront-0.9.9-py2.5
Manually install each of the packages on Windows Server using the following commands (type them in “Command Prompt” window):
cd package-directory
python setup.py install
During the installation, if there are error messages that indicate dependency violations, you can try to install the depended packages first and then install the depending packages, until all the packages are successfully installed.
To verify, move into directory “E:\Python26\Lib\site-packages” and look for .egg for the above-mentioned packages. If you can find them all, then the installation of TiddlyWeb packages are successful.
On Windows Server, open a “Command Prompt” window and type in this command:
python e:\Python26\Scripts\twinstance e:\Python26\TiddlyWebInstances\research
A new TiddlyWeb instance called “research” is then created under directory “e:\Python26\TiddlyWebInstances”.
To verify, move into “research” and view its contents. If you find a folder “store” and a file “tiddlywebconfig.py”, then the creation of TiddlyWeb instance has been successful.
On Windows Server, open “httpd.config” file in directory “E:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\http server 2.2\conf”.
Firstly, locate the section on “”Listen”. Replace “Listen 80” with “Listen 888”.
Secondly, locate the section on “virtual hosts”. Insert the following directive into this section:
<VirtualHost *:888>
ServerName localhost
ServerAlias localhost
ServerAdmin staff@localhost
# WSGIDaemonProcess localhost user=daemon processes=2 threads=15
# WSGIProcessGroup localhost
<Directory E:\Python26\TiddlyWebInstances\research>
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>
WSGIScriptAlias / E:\Python26\TiddlyWebInstances\research\apache.py
</VirtualHost>
Next, open tiddlywebconfig.py in directory “E:\Python26\TiddlyWebInstances\research”. Insert the following directive into tiddlywebconfig.py. Please use 4-space indentation instead of tab.
,
'server_host': {
'scheme': 'http',
'host': 'localhost',
'port': '888'
}
Next, create an empty file named “apache.py” in directory “E:\Python26\TiddlyWebInstances\research”. Open http://github.com/tiddlyweb/tiddlyweb/raw/master/apache.py in a web browser and copy & paste its content into apache.py, and save it.
Finally, re-start Apache HTTP server on Wndows Server.
To verify the final installation of TiddlyWeb, you need to take Step 8 to test it from a local client and Step 9 from a remote client.
On Windows Server, open this link http://localhost:888/recipes/default/tiddlers.wiki via Internet Explorer. If you find no error message, the installation of TiddlyWeb is successfully tested from a local client.
On a remote client machine (in this example, a laptop installed with Windows XP), open this link http://your-server-host-address:888/recipes/default/tiddlers.wiki via Internet Explorer. If you find no error message, then the installation of TiddlyWeb is successfully tested from a remote client machine.
If there is an error message that says “Error: Permission denied to call method XMLHttpRequest.open”, do the following configuration in Internet Explorer: "Tools"->"Internet Options"->"Security"->"Local intranet"->"Sites"->"Advanced"->"Add this Web site to the zone:", type "132.146.212.41" and click "Add" and "OK"s to confirm.
On the remote client machine, re-load the page http://your-server-host-address:888/recipes/default/tiddlers.wiki via Internet Explorer. If you find no error message, then the installation of TiddlyWeb is successfully tested from a remote client machine.
The author wishes to acknowledge helps from OSMOSOFT team for sharing knowledge and experience with TiddlyWeb. In particular, I would like to thank Jeremy Ruston for hosting my day-trip to his team in St James’s Park, Ben Gillies and Jon Robson for sharing their hand-on experience of TiddlyWeb in Linux. There are also plenty of online tutorial materials authored by numerous TiddlyWeb gurus, led by Chris Dent, which also proved very helpful to me in this exercise.
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Author |
Date |
Version |
Note |
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Yang Li |
17 November 2009 |
1.0 |
First Release |
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