Summary: This wiki page shows how I installed and configured this site using dokuwiki.
Date: 2 December 2024
Refactor: 10 July 2025: Updates after dokuwiki move and installation on AWS lightsail.

The original installation was already done in 2012 using the “Adore Belle” edition. In 2021 I had to do the installation again because everything broke due to a failed installation. This is the installation as from then:

• Download
  • Download DokuWiki
  • 2020-07-29 “Hogfather”
• Install DokuWiki
  • Unpack the distribution tarball and upload/copy the files to the httpdocs folder
  • Open the install.php in your browser and follow the instructions
    • Wiki name: SHIFT
    • Initial ACL policy: Public, read for everyone, write and edit for registered users only
    • License: GNU Free Documentation License
    • Deleted the install.php
• Configure webserver and dokuwiki
  • Use nice URLs through rewriting
    • Enable in Configuration Settings → Advanced Settings → Use Nice URLs: .htaccess
    • Modify htaccess.dist to htaccess and uncomment rewrite rules:

      ## Uncomment these rules if you want to have nice URLs using
      ## $conf['userewrite'] = 1 - not needed for rewrite mode 2
      RewriteEngine on
      #
      RewriteRule ^_media/(.*)              lib/exe/fetch.php?media=$1  [QSA,L]
      RewriteRule ^_detail/(.*)             lib/exe/detail.php?media=$1  [QSA,L]
      RewriteRule ^_export/([^/]+)/(.*)     doku.php?do=export_$1&id=$2  [QSA,L]
      RewriteRule ^$                        doku.php  [L]
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}       !-f
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}       !-d
      RewriteRule (.*)                      doku.php?id=$1  [QSA,L]
      RewriteRule ^index.php$               doku.php

  • Adjusted license to GNU Free Documentation License

A side bar is not included by default, but just create a page called 'sidebar' and the sidebar will be shown on the right side of the page. The sidebar is included in the template and is shown on every page.

• Create the page sidebar

I've configured the following settings:

• Basic Settings
  • Tagline: — Sjoerd Hooft's InFormation Technology —
• Display Setting
  • Use first heading for pagenames = Always
• Authentication Settings
  • Disable DokuWiki Actions: Register
• Editing Settings
  • Automatically save a draft while editing: no
• Link Settings
  • Target window for external links: _blank
• Media Settings
  • JPG compression quality (0-100): 100

I've installed and configured the following plugins:

• Creole plugin
  • http://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:creole
    • Go to admin → Configuration Settings → Plugin Settings → Creole Plugin → Markup precedence and set this to Creole
  • Creole is used to support more common wiki syntax, like the headers and tables syntax I use
• Tag plugin
  • http://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:tag
  • Requires pagelist plugin: http://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:pagelist
    • Formatting flags for the taglist: table,header,tags
    • Show toolbar icon: on
    • Choose style applied to pages' tags list: optimized for tags list on top of page
  • Used for the tags on top of the page
• Pagelist plugin
  • https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:pagelist
    • show heading line: on
  • The Pagelist Plugin takes a list of wiki pages and provides a nicely formatted table with information about them.
• Cloud plugin
  • http://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:cloud
  • Used for the tag cloud on the side page
• Changes plugin
  • https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:changes
  • Used for the recently changed pages in the sidebar
• Blog and include plugin
  • https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:blog
    • Position of the new entry form: none
  • https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:include
  • Used for the four most recently added pages to the start page
• Remove old files plugin
  • https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:removeold
  • Run this plugin to remove old files and clear up space
  • Note: This plugin broke the latest edition of dokuwiki (Librarian)
• Searchindex manager
  • https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:searchindex
  • Used to rebuild the index search and tags
• Upgrade plugin
  • https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:upgrade
  • Used to upgrade the wiki
• copy2clipboard Plugin
  • https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:copy2clipboard
  • Enables a 'copy to clipboard' button for code blocks
• htmlok plugin
  • https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:htmlok
  • Allows (again) for native HTML and php
  • Go to settings → Plugins → htmlok → Allow embedded HTML
• Wrap plugin
  • https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:wrap
  • Used for the boxes on the page
• Imagebox plugin
  • https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:imagebox
  • Used to add a border around images, also supports caption markup
• Adwords
  • https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:gautoads
  • From google adsense, list your site, get it approved and from the Ads section get the code to add it to the plugin settings
  • Then edit your site listing in adsense and check the settings and then apply for the ads to be shown
• Google analytics plugin:
  • https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:googleanalytics
  • Fill in Your Global Site Tag ID (G-XXXXXXXXXX)
  • Enable “Don't count admin/superuser”
• Redirect pages
  • https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:pageredirect
  • To redirect old pages to new pages or the homepage. Find all pages in the repo that do this by searching for ~~REDIRECT>. The plugin gives a 301 http status code, which will not impact your ranking in any SEO.
• MultiOrphan Plugin
  • https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:multiorphan
  • Adds an option into the admin menu to check for missing or wanted pages and media

Dokuwiki checks a few places for the favicon and logo, and one of them is the root of the wiki namespace:

• Open the media manager
  • Select the wiki namespace
  • Select the logo.png, apple-touch-icon.png and favicon.ico and upload the files
• Add the favicon.ico also to the root of the httpdocs folder

Create the following file conf/tpl/dokuwiki/style.ini to be able to make changes to the template.

Add the following lines to change the width of the site and the sidebar:

[replacements]
__site_width__  = "95%"
__sidebar_width__ = "25%"

Create a backup by downloading the following folders:

• data/pages - contains your current pages
• data/attic - all the old versions of your pages
• data/meta - contains meta information about your pages (like who created it originally, who subscribed to it, …)
• data/media - contains your current media (images, PDFs, …)
• data/media_attic - all the old versions of your media
• data/media_meta - meta data for the media
• conf - the configuration settings
• lib - will backup the installed plugins and templates (many optional, otherwise they will need to be manually downloaded again in a possibly broken interface) However, take care not to overwrite the default included core plugins

Upgrading dokuwiki is best done using the Upgrade plugin. Go to the admin section and click 'Wiki Upgrade'. This will start the upgrade, by just following the steps.

Go to the admin section and click 'Extension Manager'. This will show you the plugins that need to be updated. Click 'Update' to update the plugins.

Using the pluginmulti orphan we can check for orphaned and wanted pages and media files from the admin view.

• Syntax
• Creole Syntax
• Wrap Syntax