TWiki VMware Virtual Machine (using Ubuntu JeOS)

Easy installation on Windows, Linux and OSX!

Trivial upgrades of TWiki and TWiki Plugins

First time visiting? Start learning about TWiki by browsing the TWiki front page at http://TWiki.org/! You can also try TWiki now by editing Sandbox pages.

Summary: This page enables you to quickly and easily install a pre-configured TWiki 4.2 'software appliance' on Windows, by using the free VMware Player or VMware Server - like another computer running within your computer. This generally performs better than a normal WindowsInstallCookbook approach and is easier to install than IndigoPerlCookbook (takes just 5 minutes, a bit like installing a hard disk that has TWiki and Linux pre-installed). Although running TWiki on Linux on top of Windows may seem complicated, it's actually much simpler than installing TWikiOnWindows - no TWiki or Linux knowledge is needed to get a working TWiki installation!

This uses TWiki VM 4.2.3 released on 12 September 2008. It is installed using SvenDowideit's fosiki TWiki debian package repository to make upgrades, and installation of TWiki Plugins (with external dependencies) easy.

: If you have set up a TWiki using this installation procedure and found it easy to follow, please tag it as easy_install (just click the link). If it wasn't easy, tell us why in TWikiVMComments!

Introduction

VMware has recently released free versions of two of their products, called VMware Player and VMware Server. This means it's become possible to create a complete pre-installed TWiki system for Windows, so that you can "download and go" with a very simple installation process.

You can download a VMware Virtual Machine (VM), with TWiki pre-installed in it, from this page. This gives you a TWikiOnLinux (really TWikiOnUbuntu) environment with very little installation work, and without requiring any Linux, Apache, Perl or TWiki skills to get started. If you can download and install Windows software, you can install TWiki.

VMs are quite large because they include a complete Debian GNU/Linux installation as well as TWiki. However, the increased download time means a much quicker install time. The TWiki VM approach will get you up and running faster than WindowsInstallCookbook or even IndigoPerlCookbook, and with full international character support.

VMware background

VMware has been around for quite a few years as a way of running a 'computer within a computer' - the relevant VMware products are:

• VMware Player - freeware that enables ordinary PC users to easily run any virtual machine on a Windows or Linux PC.
• VMware Server (now out of Beta) - freeware for server usage only (based on VMware GSX Server) and allows for more advanced setups, including creating VMs and running multiple virtual machines as services on the same PC or server. This page mainly applies to VMware Player, but VMware Server should also work.

Using TWiki VM on Linux and Mac

Note: Even though you can easily run this pre-built TWiki VM on top of Linux (using VMware for Linux), the benefits are not as obvious as running it on Windows, as TWiki is not too hard to install natively on Linux (see TWikiOn). However, it could be useful to evaluate TWiki on Windows and then transfer the VM unchanged onto a Linux server, and some people just find it easier to install TWiki VM on Linux than to do a native TWiki install.

: VMware is now available on the Mac as VMWare Fusion - now, Mac users can get a working TWiki in 5 minutes! It's not clear if VMware Fusion (VMWare for Intel Macs) will remain free after its release, but it is for now. As with TWiki on Linux, it's not too hard to install TWiki natively on Mac (see TWikiOnMacOSX) but some people may prefer the VM route.

There is an entry in the VMware appliances directory that contains the link to this TWiki VMware download.

Note: There are compatibility issues with the X-Windows video driver, causing the console and firefox to not be directly accessible. TWiki will still work from your OSX Host.

Hardware requirements

TWiki VM will run on a PC with 256 MB RAM, but using it in 128 MB is not a good idea, particularly under Windows XP which really prefers 256 MB. If you run a lot of applications on the TWiki VM host PC, 512 MB RAM is recommended - a basic TWiki VM for desktop usage can take up between 90 and 160 MB or more of real memory. If using Windows Vista, you should increase these requirements significantly, but TWiki VM should be a small part of the overall 1 to 2 GB recommended with Vista.

VMware takes only a few per cent of your CPU, so the main thing to focus on is RAM. Any PC that is 1 GHz or higher should be fine. Of course, if you are using this TWiki VM for production deployment you may need a faster CPU, more RAM, and some tweaking with CGI accelerators such as ModPerl or SpeedyCGI (included in latest VM).

VMware lists minimum hardware requirements for VMware Player as "400MHz or faster processor (500MHz recommended) and 128MB RAM minimum (256MB RAM recommended)" ( VMware Player FAQ), but these are bare minimums that are not really enough for TWiki VM.

TWiki version

The current version of TWikiVMJeOS is 4.2.3-1, based on TWiki 4.2.3.

Change log

initial release 4.2.3-1 uploaded October 2008

• installed JeOS 8.4.1
• installed (using debian packages)
  • twiki 4.2.3-1
  • apache2
  • samba
  • ssh
• VMware Tools pre-installed (resolves TWikiVMWrongDate issue, adds more effective network driver) JeOS vmware help
• Initial redirect from http://twiki-vm/ to the Main.WebHome page will work without configuration, including for hostnames other than twiki-vm
• All mail activity suspended by default

How to get started!

These simple steps will quickly provide you with your very own TWiki installation - and you will avoid having to go through a full installation process just to see TWiki in action in your own environment. No TWiki or Linux knowledge is needed to get a working TWiki installation for evaluation purposes!

1. Download and install the VMware Player (from http://www.vmware.com/products/player/)
2. Download the TWiki VM package and unzip it to somewhere like c:\twiki. Download locations:
3. Start VMware Player and point it to the TWiki VM package ( .vmx file from the unzipped package)
4. Set the VMWare Ethernet device to 'NAT' so that your TWiki VM is not visible on the network (just three clicks, important for security - see screenshot below)

Your NAT setup should look like this:

If you're using a desktop or laptop PC, and you definitely enabled NAT in step 4, you can skip this security step:

• For servers, including PC-based TWikis that are accessible to other users, you need to go through the Security Setup section.

That's it! There's absolutely nothing stopping you from just TWiki'ing away in your browser after that, blissfully ignoring the technical Linux details If this sounds like you, just read the next section, #Firing_up_your_browser, and you're done! However, if you want other users in a LAN to access this system, you will have more luck by setting the VMware player's network interface up as bridged, rather than NAT, that way the system gets an IP address that is within your normal network range (with DHCP enabled) - then read the Going Public sections below.

Firing up your browser

If you are in a Windows environment, all you need to do after the virtual machine is running is to point your browser at your new TWiki installation:

• http://twiki-vm/

You should be presented with the Main topic of the installation.

If you're in another OS (Linux/FreeBSD/etc) you probably know what to do (Hint: Insert twiki-vm hostname and IP address in local DNS or in /etc/hosts).

As long as you are only using this for demos, and have set your VM to use NAT as per the installation steps above, you don't need to read the Security Setup section below (which helps in securing a real production TWiki server).

If using http://twiki-vm/ doesn't work for some reason, the IP address granted to your Debian installation can be used directly instead, e.g. http://192.168.94.xx/). You can find out the IP address of the TWiki VM by entering the command ifconfig eth0 as root in the VMware console. Using ipconfig and ping in the Windows console may also help.

Environment and OS settings in virtual machine

Some Debian or Linux/Unix expertise will help you in navigating the TWiki VM, but it is not really necessary, as you already have a working TWiki server. The following sections will help you in customizing your TWiki VM for your purposes.

The Operating System Configuration

The OS running inside the VM is Linux Ubuntu JeOS, v8.4.1 (released April 2008). You can get further information on this Linux distribution at JeOS. For more discussion of TWiki on Ubuntu and on Linux generally, see TWikiOnUbuntu and TWikiOnLinux.

• IP: DHCP-enabled installation.
  • With VMware set to NAT, VMware's DHCP server provides an IP address. Or you can use Bridged mode and get an IP from your broadband router or corporate DHCP server.
• Hostname: twiki-vm
• Domain: .lan
• Services: ssh, samba, http
• Perl: Perl 5.8.8
• Users:
  • User: login: twiki, password: twiki
  • use sudo bash to get a root level access
• Locales:
  • All locales installed, default set to en_US
  • Change default locale used in shell by running dpkg-reconfigure locales as root

TWiki Configuration

The TWiki installation in the virtual machine is a standard TWiki installation: as many default settings as possible are used. Your TWiki Configuration can be inspected by pointing your browser at: http://twiki-vm/twiki/bin/configure

Default configuration values are as follows:

{DefaultUrlHost}	http://twiki-vm/
{ScriptUrlPath}	/cgi-bin/twiki
{PubUrlPath}	/twiki/pub
{PubDir}	/var/lib/twiki/pub
{TemplateDir}	/var/lib/twiki/templates
{DataDir}	/var/lib/twiki/data
{LocalesDir}	/var/lib/twiki/locale

It runs an authenticated setup (using ApacheLogin).

• TWiki installation path
  • /var/lib/twiki/
• TWiki Users
  • Member ofTWikiAdminGroup: login: TWikiAdmin, password: TWikiAdmin
  • Standard user: login: TWikiUser, password: TWikiUser
• Authentication is enabled / authenticated setup
• view is running NOT YET SpeedyCGI
• WysiwygPlugin is enabled

http://twiki-vm/ redirects to http://twiki-vm/cgi-bin/twiki/view/ by default.

Password for saving (updating) the configuration is set to TWikiAdmin.

{Register}{NeedVerification} has been turned off, to avoid confusion on how the e-mail subsystem works (if the setting is turned on, activation codes are sent by e-mail - but these are not easily retrieved as e-mail subsystem is set to local delivery only).

Accessing TWiki-VM

As you play around more with TWiki-VM, and you realize how great it is ;-), you may want to access and modify various settings for your wiki. Many settings can be modified directly within TWiki itself (for example, AdminToolsCategory). But, for other things you may need to access the OS itself. TWiki-VM comes with SSH and Samba (Windows file sharing) enabled.

via Network Neighborhood file sharing

On your Windows PC, you should be able to browse and edit the files in the TWiki installation just by using this link from InternetExplorer or Windows Explorer:

• file://twiki-vm/ (log in as twiki / twiki by default)
• \\twiki-vm should also work

The TWiki installation is located in the twiki share. Note that FirefoxBrowser disables file:// links by default - see this Mozillazine on "Links to local pages don't work" to enable such links.

You can add, remove or update the files as you wish, but you need to use an editor that supports the UNIX file format to avoid unexpected results. Do not use Notepad if you want to alter the files in the installation. Notepad will change the files to Windows-style encoding which will break in Unix. The Crimson editor (http://www.crimsoneditor.com/) or UltraEdit (http://www.ultraedit.com/) are examples of editors that work well with the UNIX file format.

Finally, if you begin using TWiki-VM in a production-like environment, you'll want to turn off or restrict access ( /etc/samba/smb.conf) to the shares. In the default TWiki-VM install, the root directory is shared; meaning that some user on the network could stumble upon the share and accidently or maliciously do some serious damage to your TWiki-VM installation.

via SSH

An ssh service ( sshd) is already configured in the VM, so you can log on as twiki with the twiki password. Make sure you do something like ssh -l twiki twiki-vm to login in as twiki, instead of using your local account name (default).

Even if you are on the same machine as your TWiki VM, this is easier than using the VMware console, which requires keypresses to get in and out of the VMware window, and will support normal copy/paste (in local keyboard locale as well). If you are on Windows, PuTTY is a good SSH client (Google:putty+ssh).

Restarting and Shutting down the VM

Rebooting the VM

You should only need to reboot if you are doing Linux tinkering, change the VM hostname, or if you change the VMware Ethernet setup. To reboot, login as root and type shutdown -r now. To shut down completely, type shutdown -h now. After typing shutdown, you should log off if using SSH.

Note: it's also possible to reboot by clicking within the VMware main window and typing Ctrl-Alt-Del. This only works with VMware or similar console-based Linux setups, whereas shutdown works on any Linux system.

Closing down VMware

To save memory if you are not using TWiki continuously, just close the VMware window, which by default makes VMware suspend its state to disk (like hibernate on a laptop). When you run VMware again with the TWiki image, it will resume operation from where it left off, saving on the time needed to boot Linux. Some users of the 4.0.1 version of the TWikiVMDebianStable reported problems with date/time slippage, however this behavior should hopefully be better now as VMwareTools installed. Note that some tweaks may be needed even with TWikiVMDebianStable (e.g. configuring an NTP time server or changing boot parameters for the VM) - see TWikiVMWrongDate.

Main.WebHome

The Main.WebHome -topic in your new installation shows you, by default:

• Information on your currently installed version and a link to currently available versions

The intention is to use this as a vehicle to provide important security and vm release information to you - but you are free to update this topic as you please.

Advanced Configurations

These advanced configurations are only really needed for real TWiki servers, and are mostly optional for installation on laptops/desktops.

Time Configuration

This is useful for the next step "Email Configuration" so that emails don't get lost in your inbox 12 hours behind.

1. Log in as user 'twiki', default password mentioned earlier.
2. elevate to root privileges sudo bash
3. Run tzconfig (then go through and choose your timezone)
4. Run date

You might notice some discrepancies between the time reported by tzconfig and date, and the real time. The discrepancies may also change over time as described in this VMWare support article, particularly if you suspend your TWiki VM rather than shutting it down.

NTP (Network Time Protocol) software also seems to have difficulty setting the time. You may need to experiment with tzconfig to manually fake a timezone to get the time in the ballpark. (See also TWikiVMWrongDate). However, the TWiki VM 4.0.4 version added support for VMware Tools, which includes NTP client support and should improve this.

Email configuration

To be able to experience change notifications, you need to configure a SMTP target. There are two ways to do this: configure the OS Mail Transport Agent, or (i believe) configure TWiki variable SMTPMAILHOST. The first option is described here as I'm not sure about the second.

MTA

1. Log in as user 'twiki', default password mentioned earlier.
2. elevate to root privileges sudo bash
3. At the prompt, dpkg-reconfigure --priority high exim4-config
4. Choose "=Mail sent by smarthost; no local mail="
5. Visible domain for local users: twikidemo (not sure if this is significant for testing)
6. Machine handling ougoing mail for this host (smarthost): yoursmtpserver.somedomain.com (use your either your ISP or corporate SMTP server)

Now test by typing

# mail  testuser@yourdomain.com Subject: test1 does this work . Cc: 

MailerContrib

MailerContrib is already installed, but requires a regular cronjob to be set up TODO in a future release of TWikiVMJeOS

1. test it out using the following:
   1. Edit your WebNotify topic to add yourself to the subscription list
   2. Make some changes in your Main web
   3. In your VM, as root: perl -I /home/httpd/twiki/bin /home/httpd/twiki/tools/mailnotify
2. Only thing left for you to do is set the above command up as a Cron job, which is out of the scope of this set of instructions.

IP Address Problems: Returning From Hibernate in Windows

On some machines with DHCP enabled, if you hibernate the machine while running VMWare server (i.e. without stopping the server), returning from Windows hibernation will result in some quirky behavior:

1. TWiki will work fine for some time, presumably until the lease expires for the IP address assigned to twiki-vm
2. The renewal process for the IP address then takes place but a new IP address is assigned (anyone who has info or insight as to why this happens?)
3. The new IP address is usually the old IP address plus one, so if the old address was 192.168.144.155 the new one will be 192.168.144.156
4. With a new IP address, the twiki-vm hostname will no longer be accessible, ie, ping twiki-vm doesn't work and neither does http://twiki-vm in a webbrowser
5. It is apparent from the ping command however that twiki-vm is still being resolved to the old IP address (in our example, 192.168.144.155)
6. Pinging the new IP address shows that the VM is working though (or the new IP address can also be confirmed via the ifconfig eth0 command after logging in to the VM)
7. During this time accessing the samba share at \\twiki-vm should still work--Windows can apparently resolve the shared folder but not the hostname used when pinging or browsing
8. After a fairly long delay, the Windows hostname will automatically update and resolve to the correct IP address, at which point everything will start working again

The net effect of this behavior is usually the maximum possible annoyance when returning from hibernate and going to edit a page. The edit will work, but during the edit the old IP address will expire. Trying to save the edited page after that point results in the webserver not being accessible to save the edit. When this happens you can:

1. Wait the long delay out until the ping command works again and then perform the save
2. Determine the new IP address using one of the two methods stated above, and substitute the IP address for twiki-vm in the URL (ie, http://192.168.144.155/ instead of http://twiki-vm/

You may also try and set up the installation with a static IP address - see the Going public sections below - however, you can keep your VMware setup as NAT, and you don't need to open port 80 in firewalls, because the static IP address is only used by your Windows PC and the TWiki VM (not outside your PC)

Going public: changing the hostname and Samba workgroup

This is only needed for TWiki servers that are accessible to others on your network (not just within your PC), and is entirely optional for a personal installation on laptops/desktops.

To change the VM's hostname from twiki-vm to (say) fred, and the Samba workgroup for Windows filesharing to ourgroup, here's what to do:

1. This setup may expose your TWiki VM to the wider network, depending on firewall settings, so be sure to go through the security checklist - home users who aren't exposing their TWiki to the Internet can probably skip this (but do make sure you have configured WPA security on any WiFi network, otherwise it's very easy to hack into your home network)
2. TWiki: From your web browser, go to http://twiki-vm/twiki/bin/configure configure, under the General Path Settings section, change the DefaultUrlHost to http://fred.yourdomain.com
3. Linux: Login as root via SSH (you can also use the root windows share for file editing - be sure to use a Unix-compatible editor) - (for vi see http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/doc/debian/ch-editor.html) and #SshAccess and #FileSharing
4. Linux: Change the twiki-vm hostname in /etc/hostname to fred - must include exactly one line
   • If you are in the Linux shell, type echo fred >/etc/hostname
5. Linux: Edit /etc/hosts to change twiki-vm to fred on first line.
6. Linux: Edit /home/httpd/twiki/.htaccess to change Redirect line with new hostname (Apache setup) (hint: make sure you fully qualify the machine name, like wiki.yourdomain.com, otherwise you'll have users outside your domain getting redirected to wikipedia or prompted for a MSN search!).
7. Linux: Edit /etc/samba/smb.conf to change workgroup to ourgroup (Samba setup)
8. Reboot the VM by typing shutdown -r now and logging off
   • Linux can change hostname without rebooting, but this helps Windows pick up the change.
9. If you need to make your TWiki VM accessible from other machines on your network, see the next section.

Samba will pick up the new hostname on reboot. You now just need to fix any bookmarks, favourites or drive letters for filesharing, and you should be done. The TWiki pages shouldn't have any use of the hostname.

This can also be part of the 'hand over' of a TWiki VM, originally installed on your PC, to your IT department so they can install it on a server for wider use. There's probably a lot more to this, though - see #SecuritySetup.

Going public: from DHCP to Static IP address

This is mostly needed for TWiki servers that are accessible to others on your network (not just within your PC), and is entirely optional for a personal installation on laptops/desktops (although there is also a reason to do this if you want to hibernate your PC). In some networks, you can ask the IT administrator to set up DHCP to always hand out the same IP address for your TWiki VM. This section addresses the case where you need a static IP address for TWiki VM that is configured on your PC.

If you would like to give TWiki VM a static IP address, so that you can, for example, use it as your internal Wiki server and not have to worry about the IP address changing on you (mine, for example, changed a couple times when we were still experimenting), you will need to do this:

1. This setup may expose your TWiki VM to the wider network, depending on firewall settings, so be sure to go through the security checklist - home users who aren't exposing their TWiki to the Internet can probably skip this (but do make sure you have configured WPA security on any WiFi network, otherwise it's very easy to hack into your home network)
2. Get your corporate IT administrator to assign you an IP address and hostname, and configure the relevant DNS server. If you're a home user, just pick a static IP address from your network, and ensure your home DHCP server is configured not to hand out that address.
3. If you want to be accessible from the Internet, you'll need to add the appropriate rules to your corporate firewall, or configure port forwarding and firewall rules on your home firewall box (most broadband routers include a firewall).
4. In all cases, you'll need to configure your Windows PC's firewall, since it normally blocks HTTP (port 80) requests from outside your PC - most people on Windows XP SP2 or higher will have the built-in Windows firewall, while some will have installed a third party firewall such as Zone Alarm.
5. In the TWiki VM itself, edit the file interfaces located in /etc/network/. On the iface line, change the dhcp word to static. Then add the static IP configuration, as in the example below, using your own address details - if you are a home user and don't have a home DNS server, the dns-search line can be left as is:

      # The primary network interface       auto eth0       iface eth0 inet static       address *192.168.25.33*       netmask *255.255.255.0*       gateway *192.168.25.1*       dns-search *yourdomain.com*       dns-nameservers *192.168.25.5* 

1. In VMware, change the Ethernet device from NAT to Bridged.
2. Reboot TWiki VM by issuing the shutdown -r now command (and maybe reboot your Windows PC to be sure it picks up the new address.)
3. Try to connect to TWiki from another machine using a web browser, using the IP address only, e.g. http:// 192.168.25.33 /, or via Telnet using telnet 192.168.25.33 80 (and hit Enter) - if you can't connect, check firewall logs on your Windows PC as well as any corporate or home firewall box. Note that ping will only work if your firewall setup enables ICMP.

Adding plugins

There are literally hundreds of plugins that can be added to the TWiki install using SvenDowideit's fosiki TWiki Debian package repository

Instead of using configure to install the packages, you

1. Log in as user 'twiki', default password mentioned earlier.
2. elevate to root privileges sudo bash
3. apt-cache search twiki to list the available packages (over 226 in October 2008)
4. apt-get install twiki-moveabletypeskin or similar to install MoveableTypeSkin
5. goto configure to set any parameters or enable the Plugin

There are two important aspects to remember when trying to install plugins in this virtual machine.

• After installation of plugins, one has to also activate them with the configure option which will likely be found at something like http://twiki-vm/twiki/bin/configure . The confirmation password is the password of the TWikiAdmin (default password: TWikiAdmin)

Updating TWiki, TWiki Plugins and JeOS

1. Log in as user 'twiki', default password mentioned earlier.
2. elevate to root privileges sudo bash
3. apt-get update (updated the package lists)
4. apt-get upgrade (installs updated packages)

Localizing TWiki

TWiki has good support for internationalisation and comes with translations into several languages. TWiki VM is really the only way to get full TWiki I18N working on Windows, due to some issues with Perl I18N support on Windows.

The TWiki VM installation is set up for US usage by default, using the ISO-8859-1 character set for page contents (so you can use accented European characters in pages, but not in WikiWords). The TWikiVM comes pre-configured with quite a list of Debian locales and TWiki translations for languages such as French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish and Chinese (and more are being developed).

See the main TWikiInstallationGuide and user documentation for details of how to set this up via the web-based configure tool, and in particular InstallationWithI18N which goes through additional I18N setup steps. Also, check UserInterfaceLocalisation for details of new translations.

Localizing VM Keyboard

The TWikiOnUbuntu VM will have a US keyboard by default - people in other countries may want to do something like (for UK keyboard):

   install-keymap /usr/share/keymaps/i386/ *qwerty/uk*.kmap.gz 

You will want to change the uk and possibly the qwerty part ( azerty and qwertz are also available). Use ls to find what's available (hint: the TAB key auto-completes filenames).

This only needs to be done once - all Ubuntu keymaps are available in the /usr/share/keymaps/i386 directory and subdirectories.

Security and use in production environments

This TWiki-VM, in its default configuration, is purely meant for demonstration purposes only. It's fine for individual use, as-is, as long as you set VMware's Ethernet to NAT (or 'host only'). But, as you move to a production or production-like (e.g. internal corporate use) environment, you'll likely want to perform some of the advanced configurations above, and run through the security checklist below:

Security Checklist

So, you're sold on TWiki, and are ready to move it to a production-like environment. You've completed the above steps for customizing the VM for your needs (changing the machine name and configured mail). Below is a checklist of items you should do before going live.

1. Firewall - Everyone needs a good firewall. If you want to allow other users to access your TWiki-VM, your firewall(s) will have to be configured to allow http (port-80) traffic to the VM.
   • network-level - If you're within a corporate environment, you will likely already be behind the firewall and it will presumably block traffic to your computer and VM (check with your IT department to verify). If you're a home-user, a home-router (for example, a wireless Linksys WRT54G) is highly recommended (regardless of whether you're hosting a TWiki or not).
   • computer-level - Your Windows PC may already have a machine-level firewall installed and enabled (e.g. Windows XP SP2's built-in firewall). This should be enough to protect your machine and TWiki-VM from internal network users from maliciously or accidentally accessing the VM, and is a lot easier to configure and manage. Also note that many anti-virus packages (such as Norton and McAfee) also include firewalls of their own, which will typically replace the Windows built-in firewall.
   • VM-level - Since this VM includes Ubuntu Linux, you also have the option of configuring the firewall included with it. This is mostly recommended for people who already know Linux firewall setup - there are also some good tutorials online.
2. Change root and user passwords on Linux - Log in as root using the temp password above, and type the passwd root and passwd user command and follow the prompts.
3. Change user password for samba service - Use this command as root in the shell: smbpasswd -a user and give a new password for the user user.
4. Change TWikiAdmin and TWikiUser passwords on TWiki - If you're using the built-in, pre-configured TWiki authentication, you'll want to change the password for TWikiAdmin and TWikiUser. Simply login with each account and change the password on the ChangePassword page.
5. Shut down unnecessary ports. Technically, the only thing needed to run TWiki-VM is http (port 80).
6. Security-update the Ubuntu Linux OS - Ubuntu itself (the installed Linux OS) can be updated with the latest security patches by issuing the aptitude update and aptitude upgrade commands as the root user. Hit Enter if it suggests downloading additional packages, since this is a security upgrade.
7. Restrict or Turn Off Samba - For the purposes of demonstrating TWiki, TWikiVM is configured to share its' root directory and twiki directory so that you can conveniently edit any config files. As you go "live", you will definitely want at least restrict who can login, or turn them shares off altogether (it's probably advisable to turn off the root share regardless). There is lots of information and how-to's available on the net for configuring Samba, including this section on Samba's site, as well as many other examples found from Google.
   • To turn off an individual share (such as root), edit the /etc/samba/smb.conf file and add a # at the beginning of each line within the share block.
   • If you want to remove the samba file sharing service altogether, simply remove it using Debians package management: aptitude remove samba (as root).
8. Security-update TWiki release - TWiki VM doesn't necessarily use the latest release of TWiki so it is critical that you check TWikiSecurityAlerts and update TWiki to the latest release (shown in DownloadTWiki) - this can be done quite easily via hotfixes for the TWiki version in this VM. Just apply one hotfix and you are done - you don't need to do a full version upgrade of TWiki to remain secure.
9. Security announcements - Keep up with the latest security announcements that may affect TWiki itself or the underlying Debian Linux OS included in the TWiki-VM:
   • TWiki updates: subscribe to TWikiAnnounceMailingList for any TWikiSecurityAlerts as well as major TWiki version announcements.
   • Ubuntu updates: visit the http://www.Ubuntu.org/security/ Ubuntu security site and subscribe to the http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/ debian-security-announce mailing list - Debian makes it really easy to apply security updates whenever you see a relevant email.
10. Edit robots.txt - If you don't want Google to eventually finding and indexing internal-use documents, you'll want to edit your twiki/robots.txt file. More help can be found here. To block all indexing, simply replace the text with:

               User-agent: *                Disallow: /=  

Backup

TWiki content produced inside the TWiki VM can be backed up, copied or moved out of the VM at any time, using tools such as ssh (scp) or Samba. See #FileSharing if you're on Windows.

For Windows users that can install and run the .NET framework and .NET applications, the free Microsoft SyncToy is an excellent backup application that can be automated to backup the data in the VM while it is running (via a network-shared folder such as \\twiki-vm\twiki). This application can perform backups extremely fast after an initial backup by analyzing date/time/size attributes and copying only updated files so the backup data remains current.

Caution: DO NOT set your backup software (such as Backup Exec) to automatically process the VMWare file itself while the VM is running--use only a network-shared folder or stop the VM. Otherwise it will crash the virtual machine; this is a known issue and is frequently brought up on the VMWare site. You should set it up to backup when the VMWare server isn't running; otherwise it will break.

Where to go for help

Email SvenDowideit at SvenDowideit@fosikiPLEASENOSPAM.com, or read and comment on the Distributed Information blog.

If you need help, many questions can be answered in the TWiki support forum. IF you're having issues specific to this VM, you might check TWikiVMComments and see if the answer is posted there. Or you can visit TWiki:Codev.TWikiConsultants for a list of people willing to assist you in setting up your own TWiki server - or any other problem you might be having with TWiki.

About this package

This package is created by SvenDowideit to make trying out and maintaining TWiki easier. It uses SvenDowideit's fosiki TWiki debian package repository to allow yuo to update TWiki and over 200 TWikiPlugins as easily as possible.

This topic is a modified version of SteffenPoulsen's work on TWikiVMDebianStable (and the VM setup is inspired by his work), but as everything including TWiki and Plugins are installed from an auto updateable package repository, should be easier to keep up to date.

Questions and Comments

General comments

See TWikiVMComments for a general discussion - helps to keep this page from growing too big. Please, feel free to say anything you like on TWikiVMComments.

Also, if you see any useful tips or corrections in the comments, please feel free to add them to this page!