[pmwiki-users] Re: pmwiki-users Digest, Vol 7, Issue 3

[H. Fox]

On 1/4/06, Waylan Limberg <waylan at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/2/06, Han Baas <hanbb at xs4all.nl> wrote:
> >
> > On 2-jan-2006, at 9:50, pmwiki-users-request at pmichaud.com wrote:
> >
> > > 3) You may see an error message saying that PmWiki needs to have
> > >    a writable wiki.d/ directory.  If so, follow the directions to
> > >    establish one.
>
> When you upgrade to a new version of PmWiki, you don't want anything
> in that dir to be overwritten. So why isn't it included as an empty
> dir?

Because for optimum writable permissions PmWiki will need to *create*
the directory.  It can't exist already.

> My understanding is that on some *nix systems, copying a dir over
> itself, will actually overwrite the entire dir (delete the original
> and all its content, then wrighting the new one) replacing your stored
> pages with a blank dir. To avoid this, creation of the wiki.d/ dir is
> left up to the site admin. Sure, it is possable to write php code for
> this, but different systems may be configured differently causing
> additional problems. Therefore, its just easier to tell everyone to
> manually create the dir. At least thats my understanding of it all.

Here's part of the message that's displayed on a typical *nix system
where PHP isn't running in Safe Mode and the wiki.d/ doesn't exist:

~~~ start ~~~
Or, for a slightly more secure installation, try executing
    chmod 2777 /path/to/the/pmwiki-directory
on your server and following this link. Afterwards you can restore the
permissions to their current setting by executing
    chmod 755 /path/to/the/pmwiki-directory
.
~~~ end ~~~

This "slightly more secure" method causes PmWiki to create the
directory with optimal permissions.  Using this method avoids
world-writable files and directories.

Step #3 now reads

3) You may see an error message saying that PmWiki needs to have
   a writable wiki.d/ directory.  If so, follow the directions to
   establish one.  This directory will hold your wiki page files.

> > Why is PmWiki distributed without wiki.d/ directory?
> > Or alternatively: can PmWiki create the directory if it doesn't exist?
> >
> > >
> > > 4) Create an index.php file that contains the following single line
> > >    (with no closing "?>" on purpose):
> > >
> > > <?php include('pmwiki.php');
> >
> > Where should this go?
>
> In the same dir as pmwiki.php

#4 now reads

4) If you want a directory index file, create a file called index.php
   in the main directory that contains the following single line of
   text, purposefully without a closing "?>":

<?php include('pmwiki.php');

Hagan