How can i set up a corporate wiki
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Question:
I am interested in setting up a WIKI to allow employees to share resources and information. We have very basic IT infa structure here with several pcs running windows xp. If I want to run a wiki what software do I need to run in order to do this? Also does running the software have any security issues ??
Answer
Several factors are involved here, mainly your need for a wiki, the budget, and finally you and your users' level of computer savvy.
Address the NEED
Why do you think you need a wiki? What are you hoping to improve by using a wiki? What tools will it compliment or replace? In my experience, I have found that wikis reduce email usage significantly, and make information easier to find, faster. On the downside, i have noted tat this affects intra personal communication, and can radically shift office dynamics. The resources and information you want to share might include customer information, operational information, marketing and competitive information, etc. that is available elsewhere in your business (paper, email, websites, John's Desk, etc). In that case, your wiki can serve as a "Directory" of your business information, and becomes the first place to look for and find an answer.
Budget
Does the need justify the cost? Do you need a free solution? Who is responsible for maintaining the wiki? Will they receive training? Will everyone in your office receive training? You can't just throw it out there and hope people will use it.
Security
Security enters into the discussion here. I agree that a hosted solution is best in most cases. However, I have had good success installing Mediawiki on XP to keep it more private to the business. Mediawiki is free and has a lot of extensions avaialble to it that make it work well for business intranet sites.
See also
Users
Third, and perhaps most important, is the user's experience. The wiki needs to be useful foremost, and easy to use next. Gage you and your users' level of computer savvy. For example, can you use wiki markup, or do you need a WYSIWYG interface?
technical
Is it somehow possible to use a "file" URI-qualifier for local intranets e.g. [file://localhost/C: C-Drive]?
From version 1.8 you need to add the following lines to LocalSettings.php as it replaces the appropriate setting in DefaultSettings.php (but here without file://):
$wgUrlProtocols = array( 'http://', 'https://', 'ftp://', 'file://', 'irc://', 'gopher://', 'telnet://', // Well if we're going to support the above.. -ævar 'nntp://', // @bug 3808 RFC 1738 'worldwind://', 'mailto:', 'news:' );
Nothing else is needed to be done in the mediawiki system. But for some browsers you need to change the configuration of the browser settings. (see below)
Build the filelink like:
[file://///servername/directory/file.txt file.txt]
From version 1.5 you need to add one of the following lines to LocalSettings.php
$wgUrlProtocols = 'file:\/\/|http:\/\/|https:\/\/|ftp:\/\/|irc:\/\/|gopher:\/\/|news:|mailto:';
or
array_push( $wgUrlProtocols, "file://" );
Do not add both.
Maybe. You can make MediaWiki support it by adding the "file" protocol to the list of URL handlers. Right now you have to directly edit includes/Parser.php:
/* private */ function replaceExternalLinks( $text ) {
$fname = 'Parser::replaceExternalLinks';
wfProfileIn( $fname );
$text = $this->subReplaceExternalLinks( $text, 'http', true );
$text = $this->subReplaceExternalLinks( $text, 'https', true );
$text = $this->subReplaceExternalLinks( $text, 'ftp', false );
$text = $this->subReplaceExternalLinks( $text, 'irc', false );
$text = $this->subReplaceExternalLinks( $text, 'gopher', false );
$text = $this->subReplaceExternalLinks( $text, 'news', false );
$text = $this->subReplaceExternalLinks( $text, 'mailto', false );
$text = $this->subReplaceExternalLinks( $text, 'file', false );
wfProfileOut( $fname );
return $text;
}
From version 1.4 on, in Parser.php change the line
define( 'URL_PROTOCOLS', 'http|https|ftp|irc|gopher|news|mailto' );
to
define( 'URL_PROTOCOLS', 'http|https|ftp|irc|gopher|news|mailto|file' );
However, many browsers will ignore these URLs, so that even though you can create the link, clicking on it will have no effect.
This is because URLs of this type pose an inherent security risk [1].
- List of browsers supporting or not supporting the file:/// link from pages delivered from a remote server, which is common to wiki pages:
| Browser | Supports file: links? |
|---|---|
| Internet Explorer 7.0 (Windows XP SP2) | yes |
| Internet Explorer 6.0 (Windows XP SP1 or SP2) | no |
| Internet Explorer 6.0 (Windows XP Professional Version 2002 SP1) | yes |
| Internet Explorer 6.0 (Windows 2000 SP 4) | yes |
| Internet Explorer 5.5 (Windows 2000 SP 4) | yes |
| Netscape 7.0 (Windows XP SP1 or SP2) | no |
| Opera Version 7.54 Final (Linux) | no |
| Opera Version 8 (Windows) | no (2) |
| Mozilla 1.7 (Linux) | no /yes (1) |
| Firefox 1.0.x (Windows) | no / yes (1) |
| Firefox 1.5.x (Windows) | no / yes (4) |
| Konqueror (Linux) | yes (3) |
Was listed as bugzilla:614 (RESOLVED WONTFIX).
(1) Enable user_pref("security.checkloaduri", false);, see below. Drag of link and drop into location bar does not work, in difference to Copy link / Paste link.
(2) Drag of link and drop into location bar works fine.
(3) Konqueror displays a warning if a remote (eg. http) URL points to a local (file, telnet, irc, whatever), and allows the user to cancel. ((Wikipedia User JensBenecke))
(4) Enable in the user.js (is not diplayed in about:config) user_pref("capability.policy.policynames", "localfilelinks");, user_pref("capability.policy.localfilelinks.checkloaduri.enabled", "allAccess"); and the sites name for the access user_pref("capability.policy.localfilelinks.sites", "http://www.example.com");. The attribute of capability.policy.localfilelinks.sites can contain several web pages separated with blanks.
- A note: According to the Instiki FAQ loading of local file links from http links can be enabled on Mozilla and Firefox by putting user_pref("security.checkloaduri", false); into the file user.js.
- It should also be possible to set this with the "about:config" interface (just type about:config in the address bar, typing security.ch into the filter input line then narrows down the displayed options to this one). I'm not sure which version of Mozilla introduced this (I just learned about this interface today).
- However note that this setting is global, i.e. it will affect all sites you browse; while I don't know exactly what the security risk of this is, the fact that the setting is in the security section (and the note "If you don’t give a wit about the security of your local files" on the Instiki FAQ) strongly implies this is a security risk. --132.199.100.181 08:08, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- Perhaps if this is set, a malicious website could load a file:/// url into a frame, and read the contents with javascript? Could be a security risk if the right file was opened. --134.148.20.33 08:43, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
--194.95.179.181 13:32, 22 September 2005 (UTC) :
- in addition to version 1.5:
- may help using links with this format:
[[file:///%5C%5CNAME-OF-COMP-OR-IP-ADR%5SUBDIR%5C20M%F6LLER%5Cfilename.html filename.html]]
- instead of
[[file:///\\NAME-OF-COMP-OR-IP-ADR\SUBDIR\20 MöLLER\filename.html filename]]
- replace Backslash with %5c, space with %20, ö with %F6 etc.
- This works with MediaWiki 1.5, Explorer 6.0.2800 and Firefox 1.0.6
- Also in version 1.5 I found I could change the code to accept links like:
[file:\\machine\directory\my.file text]
- ..by adding file:\\\\ to the define( 'HTTP_PROTOCOLS', line in parser.php and the $wgUrlProtocols variable in DefaultSettings.php, instead of file:\/\/. I am not sure if I could get away with changing just one file. This is for MediaWiki running on Windows with Apache.
-Sprintstar 12:40, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
There is an extension for this, but I can't manage to get it work. Here it is : http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:EdmundMielach/FileProtocolLinks --212.23.162.37 14:30, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Using MediaWiki v1.5.6 and IE 6 SP2, you can make it work by modifying the following line in includes/DefaultSettings.php :
$wgUrlProtocols = 'http:\/\/|https:\/\/|ftp:\/\/|irc:\/\/|gopher:\/\/|news:|mailto:|file:';
The link syntax is then [file:\\server\UNC_Path description]. Note that spaces in UNC path must be converted to their HTML counterpart : %20.
