LogicX

I work for an Information Security Consulting firm near Boston, MA — I’ve grown up using FreeBSD, Linux, and open source software, and personally run Linux and FreeBSD on my desktops, servers, and laptop. It should even be noted that I have a co-located FreeBSD server in Miami Florida that I host some of my websites on, I run and maintain the server, I also have a Dreamhost webhosting account, and I have access to a number of other dedicated servers which I help maintain.

I’ve been frustrated for some time by the fact that I need easy ways to manage and update information, and I really like the idea of wikis, however I feel that I’m traveling back in time by doing the ‘let me try this syntax, now let me click a button to render the page and see if its what I wanted’ type of system that Wiki syntax is currently at. It feels to me very much like the early days of HTML — and along with it the myriad of poor -WYSIWYMG (What you might get) type solutions — I’ve previously tried, and am not a fan of generic WYSIWYG overlays for MediaWiki — such as fckeditor. (Specifically the fact that it does horrid javascript popups for things such as URL inputs).

At my current company I realized that we really need a system for managing our information — and so I’ve recently been evaluating Microsoft Sharepoint. To that end, Sharepoint has wiki functionality — once again, with a horrid WYSIWYG overlay, and I wanted to see what else is out there. I used WikiMatrix.org to narrow down my choices, and DekiWiki was one of the first ones I checked out. I was very thrown off by the OpenGarden website — particularly the front page — I had no idea what to make of it, could barely read the text under the DekiWiki and Dream options, etc. — I somehow came across a link to the Mindtouch site, and sighed in relief as the pleasant, easy to read site. I viewed the flash demo and was instantly impressed by the attaching of files — this was an excellent marketing tool.

Seeing as I use VMWare on a daily basis, I downloaded the VMWare image, and gave it a whirl. After a few initial problems getting it to properly start (I ended up having to delete it, re-extract and try again) — I got it up and working. Seeing as I work in the security field, I was surprised by the fact that the interface emailed me my password when I added an account, and so I immediately began tracing back the email to understand how it had sent it out, and what sorts of communications the VM was making out from our corporate environment. As I intended to use the Wiki to store sensitive corporate data, I would have to prove the security of the system to a supervisor. I ended up inspecting the host that the mail came from, and discovered an IRC server, connected, and ended up talking to a number of the developers about the security of the email system, and they informed me that they’re looking into the option of specifying your email servers in the configuration, so that mail stays local to your LAN. I can understand the need to make it work ‘out of the box’ and so relaying mail out to ensure delivery is a good method; however I think there should be the option to reassure administrators that passwords are not flying around the Internet unencrypted.

Talking to the developers I finally gained a better understanding of OpenGarden, and its role with DekiWiki, and Mindtouch’s commercialization of the product.
I shared this information with a co-worker and we decided to see how much was involved in getting DekiWiki installed on a Gentoo server at our office. While we did struggle somewhat, and still don’t have all features working, we were able to get it up and begin using it; and decided to stick with it for now over the VM, and see how it goes over in the office.

I then decided I wanted a Wiki for this site, and once again tried to turn to DekiWiki. I was unable to install the open source version on my FreeBSD server, as its running a 64Bit version of FreeBSD, and there is no mono support for AMD64 FreeBSD.

I figured that Dreamhost would not have all the required components installed to get it working there (I’ve since submitted a suggestion that they offer DekiWiki as a one-click install). I did some more searching and came across viawiki.com — The account creation functionality does not work, I emailed them and although received a nice reply, they had no ETA on when it would be working again. That was many weeks ago, and it still does not work.

I then came across Wik.is. I signed up for an account — there is very little technical information on wik.is as to what exactly it is. Exploring my account I saw many of the standard features, however I wanted to store some personal information in the wiki that I could lock down to only my account. I then read the why Upgrade page, saw the ‘Privacy: Make your wiki accessible only to selected users.” and decided that as this was what I wanted, and I was already now familiar with DekiWiki, and impressed by MindTouch backing all of this, I would signup. I also wanted to know more about the integration, as once again — I run my own server, host my websites, etc. — and wanted to see what exactly was in store for integration options.

Even after signing up — there’s almost no further information about what had just occurred. There was very little hand-holding, explanations, and no links to additional documentation to help me figure out how to take advantage of the ‘pro’ features I’d just purchased. The Customizable URL seems to be done well — I just took a stab, and set my DNS to the IP address I was being hosted at with a domain name — It still would’ve been nice to have some documentation that assured me ‘this is the IP address to resolve your hostname to — set it to the same value in this field in the configuration’. I consider myself a very technically advanced user; and so I shudder at the thought of others figuring these things out.

In the end it turns out that Wik.is provides only full public or private content functionality — no granular distinctions. As their target audience is not-so-technical consumers. They were nice enough to refund my money, based on my mis-understanding of their offering.

I really do think the MindTouch VM is an excellent idea, and the whole model of the VM and physical DekiBox, with the automatic upgrades, etc. — is a very good way to implement the product.
The unique way in which all the open source dependencies have been tied together to create a fluid product makes for a great final product, which however is difficult to setup; and MindTouch is doing a great job of releasing it in an easy to manage product.

I also look forward to DekiWiki integration of OpenID, as detailed through their Open Web Initiative.

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