MoinMoin is a free, open source, advanced and easy to use Wiki Engine written in Python. MoinMoin stores its content flat files and folders, rather than a database, so you can easily manipulate the content in a text editor on the server if necessary. You can easily synchronize contents from instance to instance.

MoinMoin has a large number of community users and is customisable, so several organisations use it for their public wikis, such as Ubuntu, Apache, FreeBSD uses MoinMoin.

In this tutorial, we will explain how to set up MoinMoin on Ubuntu 16.04 server.

Requirements

• A server running Ubuntu 16.04.
• A non-root user with sudo privileges configure on your server.

Update System

Before starting, you will need to update Ubuntu repository with the latest one.

You can do this by running the following command:

sudo apt-get update -y
sudo apt-get upgrade -y

Once your system is up to date you can proceed to next step.

Installing uWSGI

uWSGI also known as a Web Server Gateway Interface is a simple and universal interface between web servers and web applications. it is a frameworks for the Python programming language.

Here, we will use uWSGI as the application server.

You can install uWSGI using pip (Python package manager). So first install pip with the following command:

sudo apt-get install python-pip python-dev

Once pip is installed, you can install the latest stable release of uWSGI by using the following pip command:

sudo pip install http://projects.unbit.it/downloads/uwsgi-lts.tar.gz

Once uWSGI application server is installed, you can proceed to download the MoinMoin.

Downloading and Installing MoinMoin

You can find the latest version of the MoinMoin from the URL https://moinmo.in/MoinMoinDownload.

To download it, run the following command:

wget http://static.moinmo.in/files/moin-1.9.9.tar.gz

Once download is completed, extract the the MoinMoin archive with the following command:

tar -zxvf moin-1.9.9.tar.gz

Next, change the directory to moin-1.9.9:

cd moin-1.9.9

Next, you will need to build the MoinMoin Python application.

To do so run the following command:

sudo python setup.py install --prefix=/usr/local

The above command will install the MoinMoin to /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/ and /usr/local/share/moin directory.

Configuring MoinMoin

Before starting, you will need to copy the sample server configuration file moin.wsgi.

To do so, change the directory to /usr/local/share/moin:

cd /usr/local/share/moin

Then copy the sample server configuration file:

sudo cp server/moin.wsgi .

Next, you will need to make some changes in moin.wsgi file:

sudo nano moin.wsgi

Add the following lines below the import sys, os line:

sys.path.insert(0, '/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/')
sys.path.insert(0, '/usr/local/share/moin/')

Save and exit the file.

Next, you will need to create a uwsgi.ini file:

sudo nano uwsgi.ini

Add the following lines:

[uwsgi]
uid = www-data
gid = www-data
socket = /usr/local/share/moin/moin.sock
chmod-socket = 660
logto = /var/log/uwsgi/uwsgi.log

chdir = /usr/local/share/moin/
wsgi-file = moin.wsgi

master
workers = 3
max-requests = 200
harakiri = 30
die-on-term

The above file will be used to load the MoinMoin application with the uWSGI application server.

Next, create the log directory for storing the uWSGI application logs:

sudo mkdir -p /var/log/uwsgi
sudo chown www-data /var/log/uwsgi

Next, you will need to create an initctl script to start the MoinMoin application at boot time.

To do so, create a new moin.conf file with the following command:

sudo nano /etc/init/moin.conf

Add the following lines:

description "moin uwsgi service"

start on runlevel [2345]
stop on runlevel [!2345]

chdir /usr/local/share/moin
exec /usr/local/bin/uwsgi /usr/local/share/moin/uwsgi.ini
respawn

Save and close the file when you are finished.

Now, your uWSGI server is ready, you can proceed to next step.

Configuring Wiki

Next, you will need to configure Wiki for MoinMoin. First, change the directory to /usr/local/share/moin:

cd /usr/local/share/moin

Then, copy sample wikiconfig.py file:

sudo cp config/wikiconfig.py .

Next, you will need to make some changes in wikiconfig.py file:

sudo nano wikiconfig.py

Change following lines:

    sitename = u'My  Wiki'

    page_front_page = u"FrontPage"

    superuser = [u"Admin", ]

Next, change the ownership and permissions of the MoinMoin directories:

sudo chown -R www-data: /usr/local/share/moin
sudo chmod -R 775 /usr/local/share/moin

Now, start the uWSGI application server with the following command:

sudo start moin

Now, MoinMoin application server is up and running.

##Installing and Configuring Nginx

Before using MoinMoin application, you will need to install Nginx server.

You can install Nginx with the following command:

sudo apt-get install nginx-core

Once Nginx is installed, create a configuration file for MoinMoin:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/moin

Add the following lines:

server {
    server_name wiki.test.com;

    access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;
    error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;

    location / {
        include uwsgi_params;
        uwsgi_pass unix:///usr/local/share/moin/moin.sock;
        uwsgi_modifier1 30;
    }
}

Save the file when you are done, then create a symbolic link of this file to /etc/nginx/sites-enabled directory and And delete the symbolic link to the default:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/moin /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo rm -rf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

Now, restart the Nginx service with the following command:

sudo /etc/init.d/nginx restart

Once nginx is configured, you can proceed to next step.

Accessing Wiki

Once everything is up to date, it’s time to access MoinMoin Application.

Open your favourite web browser and type the URL http://your-ip-address or http://wiki.test.com, you should see the following front page:

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Next, click on the Login button at the top of the page:

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At the Login page, click the you can create one now:

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Next, enter your wiki admin user name, password and email address, then click the Create Profile button.

If all is well, you should see the following success message:

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Finally you have successfully install and configure MoinMoin Wiki on your server.

Conclusion

Congratulations! Your MoinMoin Wiki Application is now up and running. You can now easily add content, users and also change themes and configuration as you wish.