TiddlyWiki MultiWikiServer

TiddlyWiki is Growing Up

MultiWikiServer is a new development that drastically improves TiddlyWiki's capabilities when running as a server under Node.js. It brings TiddlyWiki up to par with common web-based tools like WordPress or MediaWiki by supporting multiple wikis and multiple users at the same time.

Planned features include:

• Hosting multiple wikis at once, using the Bags and Recipes mechanism for sharing data between them
• Full support for SQLite, as well as MariaDB/MySQL, Postgres, and Microsoft SQL Server
• Robust built-in synchronisation handlers for syncing data to the filesystem
• Flexible authentication and authorisation options
• Improved handling of file uploads and attachments, allowing gigabyte video files to be uploaded and streamed
• Instantaneous synchronisation of changes between the server and all connected clients
• Workflow processing on the server, for example to automatically compress images, or to archive webpages

MWS is currently under development at GitHub but it is already functional and usable.

These instructions require minimal knowledge of the terminal and require NodeJS to be installed.

1. Open a terminal window and set the current directory to the folder you want to create the project folder in.
2. The init command creates the project folder and installs the required dependencies and config files. You can change the name to whatever you like.
   copy to clipboard

   npm init @tiddlywiki/mws@latest "new_folder_name" 

3. Set the current directory to the project folder that was just created:
   copy to clipboard

   cd "new_folder_name" 

4. Start MWS:
   copy to clipboard

   npm start

5. Visit http://localhost:8080 in a browser on the same computer.
6. When you have finished using MWS, stop the server with ctrl-C

See Troubleshooting if you encounter any errors.

Updating MWS

To update your copy of MWS in the future with newer changes will require re-downloading the code, taking care not to lose any changes you might have made.

1. Make a backup: Copy or zip your project folder to a safe backup folder.
   copy to clipboard

   tar -cf archive.tar my_folder

2. Get the latest version. Notice that the second word is install instead of init. This pulls the latest version from NPM and installs it.
   copy to clipboard

   npm install @tiddlywiki/mws@latest --save-exact

3. Start the server. On startup, MWS checks the database schema and updates it automatically if there are changes. Normally this works just fine, but it can fail, which is why it's important to save a backup first.
   copy to clipboard

   npm start

Git repo

It is optionally recommended to save a history of your project configuration using git.

• On Windows you can use GitHub Desktop.
• On Linux, git is usually preinstalled or available via the default package manager for your distro.

If you decide to do this, you should move the wiki folder out of the project folder, and change the wikiPath setting accordingly.

Once MWS is successfully installed, you can access it by visiting http://localhost:8080 in a browser on the same computer.

On first start, a default user is created with username admin and password 1234. However, also by default, the server is only accessible to browsers on the same machine.

If you intend to make an MWS installation available on the Internet, the server should first be secured with the following steps:

• Change the administrator password
• Install HTTPS server certificates.