This guide will take you through the steps to install Wiki.js NodeJS Wiki Application on Ubuntu 18.04 and CentOS 7. Wiki.js is an open source, modern and powerful wiki app built on Node.js, Git, and Markdown. Wiki.js runs on Linux, macOS and Windows operating systems.
In Wiki.js, you write all content in the widely used and simple Markdown format, using the built-in visual editor. The content is directly saved into Markdown (.md) files and automatically synced with your remote Git repository. All your content is readable directly from your Git repository.
Features of Wiki.js
- Beautifully designed for the modern web
- Edit content in simple Markdown format
- Has Integrated Access Control – Local database or external authentication providers like Microsoft Account, Google ID, Facebook, GitHub, Slack or LDAP (Active Directory).
- Has Intuitive Assets Management
- Lightweight and extremely powerful
- Wiki.js has a built-in search engine
- It is free to use and open-source
Server Requirements
- Node.js 6.9.0 or later
- MongoDB 3.2 or later
- Git 2.7.4 or later
- A Git-compliant repository (public or private) (optional)
Note that the version of git available on CentOS 7 repository is a bit old, install the latest version of git using the guide How to Install latest version of Git ( Git 2.x ) on CentOS 7
We’ll use Nginx to proxy Wiki.js access and pm2 to start the application on boot.
Step 1: Install Node.js 10.x and Nginx
On CentOS 7
curl -sL https://rpm.nodesource.com/setup_10.x | sudo bash - sudo yum install -y nodejs nginx gcc-c++ make curl -sL https://dl.yarnpkg.com/rpm/yarn.repo | sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/yarn.repo sudo yum -y install yarn
For Ubuntu 18.04 / Ubuntu 16.04
curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_10.x | sudo bash - sudo apt -y install nodejs
Step 2: Install MongoDB
Wiki.js stores administrative data such as users, permissions and assets metadata in a MongoDB database.
Article contents and uploads are not stored in the DB. Instead, they are stored on-disk and synced automatically with a remote git repository of your choice.
Use our guides to install MongoDB
How to Install MongoDB 4 on CentOS 7
How to install Latest MongoDB on Ubuntu 18.04 / Ubuntu 16.04
Step 3: Download and install Wiki.js
Create a project directory
mkdir /srv/wikijs
Switch to project directory
cd /srv/wikijs
Install Wikijs
VERSION=$(curl -L -s -S https://beta.requarks.io/api/version/stable)
curl -L -s -S https://github.com/Requarks/wiki/releases/download/v$VERSION/wiki-js.tar.gz | tar xz -C .
curl -L -s -S https://github.com/Requarks/wiki/releases/download/v$VERSION/node_modules.tar.gz | tar xz -C .
Create Wiki configuration file
cp -n config.sample.yml config.yml
To view installed version, use
# node wiki --version 1.0.102
Step 4: Configure Wiki.js
Start the configuration wizard by running the command:
node wiki configure
To use a custom port, use the following command:
node wiki configure 1234
Where 1234 is the custom port. As an example, I’ll configure Wiki.js to use port 8080 on my server
node wiki configure 8080
Leave this terminal active and open a new terminal session to configure nginx
sudo vim /etc/nginx/conf.d/wikijs.conf
For http connection without ssl, add:
# Wikijs Nginx configuration file
server {
listen 80;
server_name wiki.example.com;
location / {
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080;
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
proxy_next_upstream error timeout http_502 http_503 http_504;
}
}The following configuration snippet is for http and https, but with a redirect from http to https.
# Redirect http to https
server {
listen 80;
server_name wiki.example.com;
return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri;
}
# Serve https traffic
server {
listen 443 ssl http2;
server_name wiki.example.com;
ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:50m;
ssl_session_tickets off;
ssl on;
ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/wiki.example.com/fullchain.pem;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/wiki.example.com/privkey.pem;
ssl_session_timeout 5m;
ssl_ciphers "EECDH+ECDSA+AESGCM EECDH+aRSA+AESGCM EECDH+ECDSA+SHA384 EECDH+ECDSA+SHA256 EECDH+aRSA+SHA384 EECDH+aRSA+SHA256 EECDH EDH+aRSA !RC4 !aNULL !eNULL !LOW !3DES !MD5 !EXP !PSK !SRP !DSS";
ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
location / {
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
proxy_next_upstream error timeout http_502 http_503 http_504;
}
}Restart nginx service and ensure it is set to start on boot
sudo systemctl restart nginx sudo systemctl enable nginx
Now open the link http://wiki.example.com/ and follow the installation wizard:
Ensure that dependency checks return a success
Set site title
Set MongoDB database connection
If your MongoDB is installed on the same host as Wiki.js, use:
Connection String: mongodb://localhost:27017/wiki
After a successful installation, you should get a ready to get started page.
Login to Wiki.js dashboard to start adding content
To stop Wiki.js, run the command:
node wiki stop
Restart Wiki.js
To restart Wiki.js, run the command:
node wiki restart
All settings entered during the configuration wizard are saved in the file config.yml
Step 5: Configure Wiki.js to start on boot
By default, Wiki.js will not start automatically following a system reboot. In order to make it start on boot, we need to setup pm2 as a global npm module and set it as a startup service:
PM2 is a Production Process Manager for Node.js applications with a built-in Load Balancer.
npm install -g pm2
We now need to tell pm2 to configure itself as a startup service.
pm2 startup
Finally, save the current pm2 configuration by running the command:
pm2 save
To remove init script via:
pm2 unstartup systemd
Thank you for using our guide to install Wiki.js on Ubuntu 18.04 / CentOS 7. See below other Wiki guides.
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