Wiki on a USB (or computer)

[grundyscribbling]

Before I get into the how, let's start with the motivation: why would anyone do this? The answer is that you want a wiki of your own that you don't necessarily want web-accessible. (Note that it is possible to set up a private web-based wiki, though I'm not clear on which wiki farms offer that option or if you'd have to have it hosted. It is also possible to set up a web-accessible wiki on your own computer if you're comfortable with that and your internet access allows.)

Web accessible wikis have the benefit of being accessible from anywhere you have internet, but a) you have to have internet and b) you may have security/privacy concerns about a web-based wiki. I wanted a wiki to keep track of all my writing and the notes/timelines/family trees/headcanon/etc that goes with it without having to keep scanning handwritten stuff. Having a searchable resource also sounded nice - basically, I want something like Tolkien Gateway but for my own stuff! But I didn't want it web-based, because I didn't want to have to worry about spam, hackers, or being able to access it from hotels in the middle of nowhere with lousy cell phone reception. (My job takes me some interesting places. And if you weren't already aware, avoid using devices or passwords you'd like to keep secure on hotel wifi. It. Is. NOT. secure.) I already travel with a USB drive for personal files/writing, so putting it on my USB seemed like the best route to go.

Once you've decided you want a wiki hosted either on your computer* or a USB stick, there are a couple ways to accomplish it. First, there are software options designed for single user personal wikis. I didn't go this route because as with traditional wikis, there are quite a few options out there, and I didn't want to put a lot of time into the selection process/test-driving which one would be right for me. Also, I'm not particularly intimidated by backend stuff (I went to Impressive Tech School, so it's axiomatic that I should be able to handle it.) If you don't opt for the purpose built single user software, you need to do two things. First, decide which of the many, many flavors of wiki is right for you. If you want to go more in depth than just 'what is most widely used', comparison sites can help- WikiMatrix in particular will do side by sides for ~80 wiki options. (They helpfully put some of the most popular ones near the top of the list of possibilities.) Second, make sure you can provide the required backend.

As far as selecting a wiki, I narrowed the field to DokuWiki and MediaWiki fairly quickly. They're both active projects, meaning they're supported/updated and also have active user communities should I run into any issue I can't figure out on my own. MediaWiki is also pretty widely used - it's what Wikia started out on before they forked into their own thing. (I believe TVTropes is or at least was another MediaWiki site, and Fanlore has a 'MediaWiki powered' logo.) If you've worked with a web based or fannish wiki before, chances are MediaWiki will feel familiar. It's got plenty of support, extensions, etc. So why did I waver? DokuWiki does file based storage, meaning no database (thus no SQL) necessary. I thought that might be easier to deal with.

Which brings us to the backend. You'll need a web server and PHP for pretty much any wiki option. MediaWiki also needs some form of SQL. There is a handy tool that solves all these problems - XAMPP. It's an easy to install, self contained package originally for developers who needed a sandbox. The name is an acronym:
X for cross-platform (Windows/Linux/MacOS)
A for Apache (that's the webserver)
M for MySQL/MariaDB (started out MySQL, changed to MariaDB in newer versions, but both do the same thing)
P for PHP
P for Perl.
It's not the quickest installer in the world, you'll have time to wander off for a cup of coffee/snack/whatever, but it's not a huge install. The full version is <350MB even for the MacOS, which for reasons unknown to me is apparently ~2x the size of the Windows or Linux installs - and gives you a console that lets you control when the various services are active. If, like me, you want to run it on a USB, there's a portable version of XAMPP designed for exactly that. I'd used XAMPP mobile before, so my only problem was finding where the portable version lived (not on the main XAMPP download page - you have to click on the little 'click here for other versions' that you might miss if you're not looking for it.)

Here's a screenshot of what XAMPP looks like installed and running:


Note that XAMPP will also tell you Bitnami has one-click installers for DokuWiki, MediaWiki, WordPress, Drupal, etc. YMMV on these, but I did not actually find them helpful for the wiki options - both one click installers hung for me and I ended up doing the install of the wikis manually. (No one panic, it's not as involved as it sounds.)

Once you have XAMPP installed and have the necessary modules started, download the install files for your chosen wiki. They will come zipped, so you'll need to extract the files to a 'web accessible' location - in practice, this means somewhere in XAMPP's htdocs directory. If you think you may want to use XAMPP for more than just this one thing - if you want to test drive multiple wiki options, for example, or if you think you might want to play with WordPress/Drupal/Joomla - you should probably create a directory just for the wiki. Open the setup/configuration page in your browser (the url will look something like localhost/wikidirectory/configure.php), set the options for how you want your wiki configured, click the button, and marvel at the fact that you have a brand new wiki of your very own. Of course, this wiki is also totally empty aside from any default page/formatting - if you've never started a wiki before, you've never seen a wiki so empty. So there will now be some setup work to do as you start entering information, decide how to organize your new wiki, etc.

I did the setup process for both DokuWiki and MediaWiki. Aside from finding the Bitnami one-click installers unhelpful, the only minor hiccup was the setup of MediaWiki - for some reason, the configure page was unable to create the database for the wiki automatically, so I had to do that part manually from XAMPP dashboard. (It wasn't terrible or painful, just kind of puzzling in a 'why won't you work?' way. Went to the dashboard, got to the databases page, clicked 'new' and gave the database a name, then went back to the configure page and typed the same name in. Then everything worked. There are several quirks about my computer setup that could have potentially caused this hiccup, so I don't anticipate this would happen for most people.) Now that I've tried both out, I'm strongly leaning toward moving forward with MediaWiki. I like the look of it better, there are far more extensions for it, and the format is what I'm used to working with from other wikis. I want to get up and running as quickly as possible, so I'd rather not put time into a learning curve on DokuWiki.

Obviously there will be some time/effort before I hit the payoff/full potential of the wiki, but I'm pretty confident it will make life simpler. In the short term, scanning all my notes and have them accessible as media files in the wiki will be a stopgap, but the goal is to move to it all being properly organized and searchable. I'll probably base some of my templates on ones I've seen/found useful on TolkienGateway or Wikia.

If there are any questions, fire away in the comments.

*It's possible you could set a wiki up on other devices, but I don't want to make overconfident statements about what you can install this on.

Comments

[ysilme]

Just skimming this over for the moment, but I can't say how grateful I'm for this post! ♥ I've pondered making a personal wiki for my own use for a while already, and want to try it this year if I get round to it. Judging by the few glimpses I gave this so far, it's just what I need to help me through the parts I'm clueless about.

[grundyscribbling]

I'm glad it's useful! I feel like I should add some screenshots. Feel free to ask more questions if/when you try making your own - I can't promise I'll have the answers, but I might be able to help.

[ysilme]

I'm starting to think in earnest about doing a Wiki soon (after the Linux switch, though *g* ), but I'm already pondering a few options. One is my desire to have some network availability. One option would be using one of the free databases I still have in my hosting contract (I'm renting some space and domains for my family's private use), but there are some reasons "on a stick" would be more practical for me. I'm wondering, though, if I also could do that locally in my own LAN, so I can access it with all my devices without carrying an USB stick around. We're not having a fileserver as such yet, but are working on this (husband is supposed to be the home network guy but never has leisure for it, so I need to learn it and do it myself), but our DSL router has the option of attaching an USB device for file serving purposes. I already have one and tried to use it (partly in vain, as Win10 obviously doesn't allow you any longer to see the home network or however that's called in English, and we couldn't convince it in any way to cooperate - we tried every option available online, but it's not working. This is also one of the reasons I decided to switch to Linux right now.), so it'll be physically available all the time either by ethernet cable (my desktop) or Wifi (my notebook).
Do you know or think it would work to use a Wiki on an USB stick in this way?

[grundyscribbling]

I think the "on a stick" option could work, but I'd also say check what sort of speeds you can expect from the USB before you set up your database - if you're tearing out your hair in frustration because your USB doesn't respond fast enough and your wiki is constantly timing out, it won't be very helpful. (Go USB 3.0 if you can.)

(Also, sorry about the delayed response - I thought I posted this yesterday, yet when I took my morning breakfast break, there it was still sitting unposted. *headdesk*)

[independence1776]

Thank you for this! My tech knowledge is limited enough this is still over my head. Oh well! Something to learn more about.

[grundyscribbling]

You're welcome! (But drat, I was trying for 'approachable even for a beginner'. XAMPP handles all the backend and give you a push-button console to control whether Apache and MySQL are running. After that, it's basically just plunking files down in the right place and opening the configure file in your browser.)

[independence1776]

See.. I don't even know what those are. All I know about MySQL is that SWG uses it. I am newborn level tech knowledge; I can code italics, bold, and unordered lists and that's about it.

And it's not something I expect you to take more time out of your day to rectify! My ignorance is my problem to fix.

[grundyscribbling]

no worries. I'm feeling rather badly because I didn't realize that the writeup wasn't as basic as I thought! Short explanation for what they are: Apache is a web server - what gets files from where they're stored to your browser. It's basically a waiter - it takes orders and serves them. You want home.html? Here you go. You want half a dozen scripts on the side with home.html? Coming right up. MySQL is a database manager. It does something similar but with information from a database. XAMPP is just a software package that puts both and a few computer languages on your computer and gives you a nice control console to turn them on and off with.

[independence1776]

Thanks for the explanations. :)

[keiliss]

I'm with Indy. It's fascinating but I'm not even sure it's English *g*. Seriously, over my head but an interesting idea.

[grundyscribbling]

It's English, but of the 'tech' dialect. :)