Best Instructions for Installing MindTouch Core on Windows Server 2003 + IIS6?

[eric terrell]

Folks:

I attempted to install MindTouch Core on a Windows Server 2003 + IIS 6 VMware VM.

I used these instructions: http://developer.mindtouch.com/Deki/...ore_on_Windows

I experienced a variety of failures. For instance, the IIRF program would cause all web page requests to 404.

I was able to get Mind Touch to serve up pages, but the API seemed to fail on every call.

Is there a better set of instructions for installing MindTouch Core on Windows Server 2003 and IIS 6? If not, what source materials did the author of the above instructions use?

Eric Terrell

[crb]

This is the only real set of instructions (imo) short of paying for MindTouch 2009 and using the MSI installer. The source materials the author (me) used was a lot of experimentation and hard work!

If there are failures for your setup, I'd love to help with them one-at-a-time and improve the documentation for everyone. Please give as much detail as you can.

[dkozlov]

cbr,

I confirm that installing IIRF (using attached installer to page) makes all request return "page not found error". I have other web-sites (ASP.NET) on this IIS, they stop working too.
I have to reinstall IIS to fix this.
But I really want to try MindTouch. If you can help he I would really appreciate this.

Thanks!

[crb]

Two possibilities:

1. Your web service process can't read the IIRF .dll or .ini - verify with Process Monitor
2. It's redirecting everything and should not be - check with a log file directive in the IIRF .ini file

[brigettek]

Do you also see the "page not found error" when you install using the MindTouch 2009 MSI? If it works, you could compare its IIRF configuration to the MindTouch Core configuration.

[dkozlov]

Thank you for prompt responses.

crb,

I will try to investigate this issue, will let you know a little later about that.

So far few questions:
Can I skip installation of IIRF and install it later (is it vital for MindTouch)? I mean if I specify correct URLs it should work without redirection stuff.

brigettek,

Can I install MindTouch using MSI and after that replace package to Core that is free?

[brigettek]

I would just use the Mindtouch 2009 MSI as a tool to compare the configuration of IIRF; I would not try to mix its installation with the Core installation, as that might lead to complications. If it works, you will at least have a template of how your IIS should be setup.


Specific things to check that could lead to interference with your existing ASP.NET sites: In the IIS Manager, view the web site properties->ISAPI Filters for all your sites to ensure that IsapiRewrite is only registered for the Mindtouch Deki site. It would also be good to check your web service extensions (I seem to recall some issues with having existing sites using a different version of ASP.NET - the ASP.NET web service extension can get stomped by a different version of the ASP.NET web service extension)

[crb]

Can I skip installation of IIRF and install it later (is it vital for MindTouch)? I mean if I specify correct URLs it should work without redirection stuff.

No, you really need to redirect links that are generated to http://wiki/Page so they are rewritten to http://wiki/index.php?title=Page (or even ?title=, the empty string, for the main page).

Here is the .ini file that gets installed:

# IIRF rewrite rules for MindTouch Core
# Craig Box, 2009-06-20
# Based on https://svn.mindtouch.com/source/public/dekiwiki/9.02/config/deki-apache.conf

RewriteCond %{URL} ^/$
RewriteRule ^/$ /index.php?title= [L]

RewriteCond %{URL} ^(?!/(@api|editor|skins|config|deki)/)
RewriteCond %{URL} ^(?!/index\.php)
RewriteCond %{URL} ^(?!/favicon\.ico$)
RewriteCond %{URL} ^(?!/robots\.txt$)
RewriteCond %{URL} ^(?!/error/(.*)\.var$)
# RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^$ [OR] %{URL} ^/Special:Search
RewriteRule ^/([^\?]*)(?:\?(.*))?$ /index.php?title=$1&$2 [L]

# side note: I love it when googling for how to do things, to find that MT staff 
# have asked the same question already and provided the answer :)

And here is the script that installs it:

cacls IsapiRewrite4.dll /e /g iis_wpg:R
cacls IsapiRewrite4.ini /e /g iis_wpg:R
cscript FiltTool.js -Name:IIRF -DLL:"$INSTDIR\IsapiRewrite4.dll" -Action:Add

So, it does appear to be added globally. You probably don't want that and I maybe should make it pop up a box to only apply to certain web sites.

[dkozlov]

Tanks again for responses.

I was managed to install IIRF manually only for deki site. Installation page was appeared, yahoo!
I provided all necessary values and installation was executed without errors.
After that, I executed configuration stuff from installation guide (on these that installation displayed me).
After I clicked "visit MindTouch" I have got "Site settings could not be loaded".
The reason might be because I access my web site using IP address not host name.
When I use host name is says "server not found" something. IP address worked for me.
So I hard coded my IP address regarding installation guide. And still it didn't work for me.
Also I tried to access pages directly:
http://<IP>/@api/deki/pages/home
no luck again.
Any other ideas that I may try?

Debug info:

HTTP Response Status Code: 0

Trying API autodiscovery:

The API is currently located at http://10.0.2.15/@api/deki.
Trying http://localhost:8081/deki ... failed (HTTP Status: 0)

Also I specified wrong file for Prince library but I don't think that it is major stuff and could be fixed later in the settings.

[crb]

After that, I executed configuration stuff from installation guide (on these that installation displayed me).

Do you mean "not the ones that were displayed" - I hope so!

You need to hard-code your IP into the LocalSettings.php as displayed, and you also need to confirm that http://<IP>/@api/deki/ returns some results for you.