path: root/doc/usage.mdwn

# NAME

ikiwiki - a wiki compiler

# SYNOPSIS

ikiwiki [options] source destination

ikiwiki --setup configfile

# DESCRIPTION

`ikiwiki` is a wiki compiler. It builds static HTML pages for a wiki, from
`source` in the [[ikiwiki/Markdown]] language (or others), and writes it out to
`destination`.

Note that most options can be shortened to single letters, and boolean
flags such as --verbose can be negated with --no-verbose.

# MODE OPTIONS

These options control the mode that ikiwiki operates in.

* --refresh

  Refresh the wiki, updating any changed pages. This is the default
  behavior so you don't normally need to specify it.

* --rebuild

  Force a rebuild of all pages.

* --cgi

  Enable [[CGI]] mode. In cgi mode ikiwiki runs as a cgi script, and
  supports editing pages, signing in, and registration.

  To use ikiwiki as a [[CGI]] program you need to use --wrapper or --setup
  to generate a wrapper. The wrapper will generally need to run suid 6755 to
  the user who owns the `source` and `destination` directories.

* --wrapper [file]

  Generate a wrapper binary that is hardcoded to do action specified by
  the other options, using the specified input files and `destination`
  directory. The filename to use for the wrapper is optional.

  The wrapper is designed to be safely made suid and be run by untrusted
  users, as a [[post-commit]] hook, or as a [[CGI]].

  Note that the generated wrapper will ignore all command line parameters.

* --setup configfile

  In setup mode, ikiwiki reads the config file, which is really a perl
  program that can call ikiwiki internal functions.

  [[ikiwiki.setup]] is an example of such a config file.

  The default action when --setup is specified is to automatically generate
  wrappers for a wiki based on data in a config file, and rebuild the wiki.
  If you only want to build any changed pages, you can use --refresh with
  --setup.

* --wrappers

  If used with --setup --refresh, this makes it also update any configured
  wrappers.

* --aggregate

  If the [[plugins/aggregate]] plugin is enabled, this makes ikiwiki poll
  configured feeds and save new posts to the srcdir.

  Note that to rebuild previously aggregated posts, use the --rebuild option
  along with this one. --rebuild will also force feeds to be polled even if
  they were polled recently.

* --render file

  Renders a single file, outputting the resulting html. Does not save state,
  so this cannot be used for building whole wikis, but it is useful for
  previewing an edited file at the command line. Generally used in conjunction
  with --setup to load in a wiki's setup:

	ikiwiki --setup ~/ikiwiki.setup --render foo.mdwn

* --post-commit

  Run in post-commit mode, the same as if called by a [[post-commit]] hook.
  This is probably only useful when using ikiwiki with a web server on one host
  and a repository on another, to allow the repository's real post-commit
  hook to ssh to the web server host and manually run ikiwiki to update
  the web site.

* --version

  Print ikiwiki's version number.

# CONFIG OPTIONS

These options configure the wiki. Note that [[plugins]] can add additional
configuration options of their own.

* --wikiname

  The name of the wiki, default is "wiki".

* --templatedir

  Specify the directory that the page [[templates|wikitemplates]] are stored in.
  Default is `/usr/share/ikiwiki/templates`, or another location as configured at
  build time. If the templatedir is changed, missing templates will still
  be searched for in the default location as a fallback.

  Note that if you choose to copy and modify ikiwiki's templates, you will need
  to be careful to keep them up to date when upgrading to new versions of
  ikiwiki. Old versions of templates do not always work with new ikiwiki
  versions.

* --underlaydir

  Specify the directory that is used to underlay the source directory.
  Source files will be taken from here unless overridden by a file in the
  source directory. Default is `/usr/share/ikiwiki/basewiki` or another
  location as configured at build time.

* --wrappermode mode

  Specify a mode to chmod the wrapper to after creating it.

* --wrappergroup group

  Specify what unix group the wrapper should be owned by. This can be
  useful if the wrapper needs to be owned by a group other than the default.
  For example, if a project has a repository with multiple committers with
  access controlled by a group, it makes sense for the ikiwiki wrappers
  to run setgid to that group.

* --rcs=svn|git|.., --no-rcs

  Enable or disable use of a [[revision_control_system|rcs]].

  The `source` directory will be assumed to be a working copy, or clone, or
  whatever the revision control system you select uses.

  In [[CGI]] mode, with a revision control system enabled, pages edited via
  the web will be committed.

  No revision control is enabled by default.

* --svnrepo /svn/wiki

  Specify the location of the svn repository for the wiki.

* --svnpath trunk

  Specify the path inside your svn repository where the wiki is located.
  This defaults to `trunk`; change it if your wiki is at some other path
  inside the repository. If your wiki is rooted at the top of the repository,
  set svnpath to "".

* --rss, --norss

  If rss is set, ikiwiki will default to generating RSS feeds for pages
  that inline a [[ikiwiki/blog]].

* --allowrss

  If allowrss is set, and rss is not set, ikiwiki will not default to
  generating RSS feeds, but setting `rss=yes` in the blog can override
  this default and generate a feed.

* --atom, --noatom

  If atom is set, ikiwiki will default to generating Atom feeds for pages
  that inline a [[ikiwiki/blog]].

* --allowatom

  If allowatom is set, and rss is not set, ikiwiki will not default to
  generating Atom feeds, but setting `atom=yes` in the blog can override
  this default and generate a feed.

* --pingurl URL

  Set this to the URL of an XML-RPC service to ping when an RSS feed is
  updated. For example, to ping Technorati, use the URL
  http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

  This parameter can be specified multiple times to specify more than one
  URL to ping.

* --url URL

  Specifies the URL to the wiki. This is a required parameter in [[CGI]] mode.

* --cgiurl http://example.org/ikiwiki.cgi

  Specifies the URL to the ikiwiki [[CGI]] script wrapper. Required when
  building the wiki for links to the cgi script to be generated.

* --historyurl URL

  Specifies the URL to link to for page history browsing. In the URL,
  "\[[file]]" is replaced with the file to browse. It's common to use
  [[ViewVC]] for this.

* --adminemail you@example.org

  Specifies the email address that ikiwiki should use for sending email.

* --diffurl URL

  Specifies the URL to link to for a diff of changes to a page. In the URL,
  "\[[file]]" is replaced with the file to browse, "\[[r1]]" is the old
  revision of the page, and "\[[r2]]" is the new revision. It's common to use
  [[ViewVC]] for this.

* --exclude regexp

  Specifies a rexexp of source files to exclude from processing.
  May be specified multiple times to add to exclude list.

* --adminuser name

  Specifies a username of a user (or, if openid is enabled, an openid) 
  who has the powers of a wiki admin. Currently allows locking of any page,
  and [[banning|banned_users]] users; other powers may be added later.
  May be specified multiple times for multiple admins.

  For an openid user specify the full URL of the login, including "http://".

* --plugin name

  Enables the use of the specified [[plugin|plugins]] in the wiki. 
  Note that plugin names are case sensitive.

* --disable-plugin name

  Disables use of a plugin. For example "--disable-plugin htmlscrubber"
  to do away with HTML sanitization.

* --libdir directory

  Makes ikiwiki look in the specified directory first, before the regular
  locations when loading library files and plugins. For example, if you set
  libdir to "/home/you/.ikiwiki/", you can install a Foo.pm plugin as
  "/home/you/.ikiwiki/IkiWiki/Plugin/Foo.pm".

* --discussion, --no-discussion

  Enables or disables "Discussion" links from being added to the header of
  every page. The links are enabled by default.

* --numbacklinks n

  Controls how many backlinks should be displayed at the bottom of a page.
  Excess backlinks will be hidden in a popup. Default is 10. Set to 0 to
  disable this feature.

* --userdir subdir

  Optionally, allows links to users of the wiki to link to pages inside a
  subdirectory of the wiki. The default is to link to pages in the toplevel
  directory of the wiki.

* --htmlext html

  Configures the extension used for generated html files. Default is "html".

* --timeformat format

  Specify how to display the time or date. The format string is passed to the
  strftime(3) function.

* --verbose, --no-verbose

  Be verbose about what is being done.

* --syslog, --no-syslog

  Log to syslog(3).

* --usedirs, --no-usedirs

  Toggle creating output files named page/index.html (default) instead of page.html.

* --prefix-directives, --no-prefix-directives

  Toggle new '!'-prefixed syntax for preprocessor directives.  ikiwiki currently
  defaults to --no-prefix-directives.

* --w3mmode, --no-w3mmode

  Enable [[w3mmode]], which allows w3m to use ikiwiki as a local CGI script,
  without a web server.

* --sslcookie

  Only send cookies over an SSL connection. This should prevent them being
  intercepted. If you enable this option then you must run at least the 
  CGI portion of ikiwiki over SSL.

* --getctime

  Pull last changed time for each new page out of the revision control
  system. This rarely used option provides a way to get the real creation
  times of items in weblogs, such as when building a wiki from a new
  Subversion checkout. It is unoptimised and quite slow. It is best used
  with --rebuild, to force ikiwiki to get the ctime for all pages.

* --set var=value
  
  This allows setting an arbitrary configuration variable, the same as if it
  were set via a configuration file. Since most options can be configured
  using command-line switches, you will rarely need to use this, but it can be
  useful for the odd option that lacks a command-line switch.

# ENVIRONMENT

* CC

  This controls what C compiler is used to build wrappers. Default is 'cc'.

# SEE ALSO

* [[ikiwiki-mass-rebuild]](8)
* [[ikiwiki-update-wikilist]](1)

# AUTHOR

Joey Hess <joey@ikiwiki.info>

Warning: this page is automatically made into ikiwiki's man page via [mdwn2man](http://ikiwiki.info/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/trunk/mdwn2man?root=ikiwiki&view=markup).  Edit with care