Simple Web Based Wiki

When my infrastructure grew to a certain level of complexity, I realised I was having to remember a lot to keep it all together. For some time I’d been (and still am) a big fan of Zim Desktop Wiki however this is less than practical for using multiple machines and doesn’t work at all if you’re connecting over a remote connection, really I needed something web based.

MediaWiki is a popular choice, as is tiddlyWiki but both have a steep learning curve and were too overblown for what I needed. A search on WikiMatrix led me to some false starts but eventually led me to an unknown application called BananaDance that was ideal.

Operating System: Ubuntu 16.04
Required Applications: php5, php5-fpm, nginx, openssl, build-essentials, git, curl

Install the Pre-Requisite Software

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install php5 php5-fpm nginx openssl composer build-essentials git curl
php -r "copy('https://getcomposer.org/installer', '/tmp/composer-setup.php');"
php -r "if (hash_file('SHA384', '/tmp/composer-setup.php') === 'SHA_384_Sig_Key') { echo 'Installer verified'; } else { echo 'Installer corrupt'; unlink('/tmp/composer-setup.php'); } echo PHP_EOL;"
php /tmp/composer-setup.php --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer

Create an encrypted hash table for security

This will be used to provide a username/password prompt for the web server login:

sh -c "echo -n 'welsh:' >> /etc/nginx/.htpasswd"
sh -c "openssl passwd -apr1 >> /etc/nginx/.htpasswd"

Enter a password when prompted and then verify that it’s hash has been saved with:

cat /etc/nginx/.htpasswd

Configure the webserver

Edit the NGINX default website

Ahead of this I have generated a certificate and private key from the CA built earlier, this will be used to help secure the webserver with https.

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

Remove any content and enter the following configuration:

server {
    listen 443 default_server ssl;
    ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/certs/wiki.crt
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/private/wiki.key
    server_name wiki.tinfoilcipher.co.uk; #replace with your own server name
    root /var/www/html;
    index.php
    server_name wiki.tinfoilcipher.co.uk;
    root /var/www/html;
    
    location ~ \.php$ {
        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
        auth_basic "Restricted Content";
        auth_basic_user_file /etc/nginx/.htpasswd;
    }
}

Save the config with CTRL+O and restart the web server:

sudo /etc/init.d/nginx restart

Deploy BananaDance

NGINX is now deployed, however it does not contain any content, we need to install BananaDance next:

cd ~
composer create-project jbelelieu/banana_dance_lite --prefer-dist
cd ~/banana_dance_lite
mv -R * /var/www/html
rm /var/www/html/index.nginx-debian.html
chmod -R 755 /var/www/html

BananaDance is now deployed and it’s content exists within /var/www/html/wiki/en. Files can be created and written in markdown.
The server should be accessible at https://your_hostname and you will be prompted for the username/password set up in the hash table.