[pmwiki-users] Wiki farm confusion

[Patrick R. Michaud]

On Wed, Mar 15, 2006 at 07:34:57PM -0700, H. Fox wrote:
> 
> I can only hear chirping crickets responding to my earlier question in
> another thread about what to call a standalone installation's wiki
> when a second wiki is installed using it as a base, but here's how I
> look at it now (which may be different an hour from now):

Oh, sorry for the chirping crickets.  I didn't have a good answer,
and anyway I didn't want to bias the discussion too much with any
answer I might give.  (Plus, at the time I was busy fighting server 
load issues again and trying to figure out why mailing list messages were
stuck again, and after that was fixed I was playing catch-up on email.)

DaveG's answer that "[t]here is no difference -- it's simply a wiki
that happens to be inside the PmWiki installation directory" isn't 
too far off the mark.  

> Standalone wiki - A wiki installation with no farmconfig.php.
> Wiki farm - An installation with a farmconfig.php that defines $FarmPubDirUrl.
> Home installation - The base installation in a farm setup (a.k.a. a barn)
> Home wiki - A wiki in a farm where $FarmPubDirUrl and $PubDirUrl are the same
> Field wiki - A wiki in a farm where $FarmPubDirUrl and $PubDirUrl are different
> 
> Lets give these a workout, shall we?

As technical definitions they're fine, but as an introduction to
wikifarms they might be a bit confusing.  Or maybe not.  (I'm the
wrong audience for evaluating that. :-)

> You can turn a standalone wiki into a home wiki by installing a
> farmconfig.php and adding a field wiki that uses the original
> standalone wiki's files as its home installation.  

Yes.

> You can convert the
> home wiki to a field wiki by installing a second field, then moving
> the data files over from the home wiki, then after some configuring
> and renaming of directories you will have a home installation without
> a home wiki, but with two field wikis.  

I'm not sure about the "configuring and renaming of directories" part.

> Now you can move the home
> installation out of the web document tree for a more secure
> installation.

... you still have to provide web access to the home installation's
pub/ directory somehow.  (This step is not always easy, or easy to
explain in the face of various operating systems, administrative
rights, and administrator skill levels.)

> Here's a note that appeared in my document draft.  It might provide
> some food for thought on this subject:
> 
>     Just a note that a field wiki can have its own pub/ directory, and
>     skins can also be placed there. The skins code will look first in
>     the field's pub/skins/ directory, and then in the farm's pub/skins/
>     directory. ... --Pm
> 
> That was news to me :-), but it points out one way in which a home
> wiki and a field wiki differ.

The only real difference is that a home wiki uses the same pub/
directory as the home installation, whereas a field wiki can
provide its own pub/ .  I guess that's a big enough difference,
though.

But to get directly at the point of your message, I think "home wiki"
works better than "barn" for me.

Perhaps "first wiki" or "prime wiki"?

Pm