Install Foswiki on Ubuntu with Nginx

The serverDer Server

I start with a default installation of Ubuntu server (11.10 in this Howto).

Install Nginx

Install software to add PPA:

aptitude install python-software-properties

Add Nginx PPA:

nginx=stable # use nginx=development for latest development version
add-apt-repository ppa:nginx/$nginx

Install Ngnix:

aptitude update 
aptitude install nginx

See Nginx install Ubuntu PPA for more details.

FastCGI

Now install FastCGI for Nginx:

aptitude install fcgiwrap spawn-fcgi

See Linode perl-fastcgi on Ubuntu

Install Foswiki

wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/foswiki/files/foswiki/1.1.4/Foswiki-1.1.4.tgz
mkdir /var/www
tar vfx Foswiki-1.1.4.tgz
mv Foswiki-1.1.4 /var/www/foswiki
chown www-data:www-data /var/www -R

Install required packets for Foswiki

aptitude install rcs libarchive-tar-perl libarchive-zip-perl libcgi-session-perl \
libdigest-sha-perl libdigest-sha1-perl libhtml-entities-numbered-perl \
libhtml-parser-perl libhtml-tree-perl

Configure Ngnix

Remove the ‘default’ site configuration by deleting the symlink:

rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

Create ‘/etc/nginx/sites-available/foswiki.conf’ with this content:

server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  foswikiserver;

    set $foswiki_root "/var/www/foswiki";
    root $foswiki_root; 

    location / {
        root $foswiki_root;
        index index.html;
    }
   
    location /bin/configure {
        allow 127.0.0.1;
        allow YOUR_IP_HERE_!!!;
        deny all;
        gzip off;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/fcgiwrap.socket;
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^/foswiki(/bin/configure)(?:\.pl)?(.*);
        fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $foswiki_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_param  PATH_INFO $fastcgi_path_info;
        include fastcgi_params;
    }
}

Note: Replace “YOUR_IP_HERE_!!!” with the IP-Address of your workstation to allow you the access to the configuration page.

Now enable the new site:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/foswiki.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Restart Ngnix:

service nginx restart

Note: My Foswiki server called ‘foswikiserver’ you have to replace this with your Domainname like ‘www.myfoswiki.com’.

Configure Foswiki

Now open ‘http://foswikiserver’ in your browser:

Select ‘Configure Foswiki’ and make your configuration settings.

Now go to ‘Extensions’ and select ‘Install and Update Extensions’.

Search the ‘FastCGIEngineContrib’ Extension and install it.

More informations see: Foswiki configuration on Nginx

Configure Foswiki FastCGI

Install the requires package:

aptitude install libfcgi-perl

Now create a small upstart script to run foswiki FastCGI.

Create ‘/etc/init/foswiki.conf’:

# Foswiki - Service Upstart script #

description "foswiki"
author "Mogilowski Sebastian"

start on started networking
stop on runlevel [!2345]

env FOSHOMEDIR=/var/www/foswiki
env FOSSOCKDIR=/var/run/nginx
env FOSUSER=www-data
env FOSGROUP=www-data
env NUMCHILDS=25

respawn

pre-start script
    chdir $FOSHOMEDIR/bin
    mkdir $FOSSOCKDIR                              ||true
    chown $FOSUSER:$FOSGROUP $FOSSOCKDIR           ||true
    chmod 0755 $FOSSOCKDIR                         ||true
end script

script
  cd $FOSHOMEDIR/bin

  exec su -s /bin/sh -c 'exec "$0" "$@"' -- $FOSUSER ./foswiki.fcgi -n $NUMCHILDS -l $FOSSOCKDIR/foswiki.sock

end script

Now you can start the foswiki service:

service foswiki start

Now extend the Ngnix configuration ‘/etc/nginx/sites-available/foswiki.conf’:

server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  foswikiserver;

    set $foswiki_root "/var/www/foswiki";
    root $foswiki_root; 

    location / {
        root $foswiki_root;
	rewrite ^/?$ http://foswikiserver/bin/view.pl/Main permanent;
    }
   
    location /bin/configure {
        allow 127.0.0.1; # localhost, you may want to omit due to security considerations.
        allow YOUR_IP_HERE_!!!;
        deny all;
        gzip off;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/fcgiwrap.socket;
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^/foswiki(/bin/configure)(?:\.pl)?(.*);
        fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $foswiki_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_param  PATH_INFO $fastcgi_path_info;
        include fastcgi_params;
    }

    location /bin/ {
           gzip off;
           fastcgi_pass             unix:/var/run/nginx/foswiki.sock;
           fastcgi_split_path_info  ^(/bin/\w+)(.*);
           fastcgi_param            SCRIPT_FILENAME $foswiki_root/$fastcgi_script_name;
           fastcgi_param            PATH_INFO       $fastcgi_path_info;
           fastcgi_param            SCRIPT_NAME     $fastcgi_script_name;
           include fastcgi_params;
       }

    location ~ (^/lib|^/data|^/locale|^/templates|^/tools|^/work) {
        deny all;
    }

    if ($http_user_agent ~ ^SiteSucker|^iGetter|^larbin|^LeechGet|^RealDownload|^Teleport|^Webwhacker|^WebDevil|^Webzip|^Attache|^SiteSnagger|^WX_mail|^EmailCollector|^WhoWhere|^Roverbot|^ActiveAgent|^EmailSiphon|^CrownPeak-HttpAgent|^$) {
        rewrite .* /404.html break;
   }
}

Note: Remember to replace “YOUR_IP_HERE_!!!” with the IP-Address of your workstation to allow you the access to the configuration page and to replace ‘foswikiserver’ with your servername.Last step is to reload Nginx webserver:Der letzte Schritt ist den Nginx-Webserver neu zu starten:

service nginx reload

Open foswiki in your browser with ‘http://foswikiserver’.

Links:

* foswiki.org
* nginx.org
* Foswiki configuration on Nginx
* Perl FastCGI on Ubuntu
* Install Ubuntu_PPA
* Foswiki FastCGIEngineContrib Extension
* Running upstart jobs as unprivileged users
* Upstart Intro, Cookbook and Best Practises