POC Xwiki farm at wiki.opendev.org
This spec describes evaluating Xwiki as a potential wiki farm setup for Opendev communities at wiki.opendev.org, using an initial test community and initially leveraging Xwiki.com "open source free hosting" offer. Change-Id: Iacc3ad4af69d99ac61ecc51ddaf2c345c3f01f9a
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Thierry Carrez
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specs/cleanup-test-node-python
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specs/deploy-ci-dashboard
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specs/jenkins-job-builder_2.0.0-api-changes
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specs/jitsi-meet
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specs/nodepool-drivers
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specs/puppet-module-functional-testing
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specs/refstack_dot_org
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specs/translation_check_site
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specs/wiki_modernization
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specs/website-stats
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specs/jitsi-meet
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specs/xwiki-farm
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Help Wanted
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===========
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specs/xwiki-farm.rst
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specs/xwiki-farm.rst
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::
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Copyright 2020 Thierry Carrez
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
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Unported License.
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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode
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==========
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Xwiki farm
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==========
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This document describes setting up a wiki farm based on `Xwiki`_ to serve the
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needs for lightweight, structured document publication (between etherpad
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and git-driven formal documentation) within Opendev communities.
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Problem Description
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===================
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Opendev serves multiple subcommunities. Some of them have expressed the need
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for a wiki: a lightweight way to publish information while retaining clear
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history and authorship. This is traditionally very helpful at early stages
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of the formation of communities.
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Our current response is to ask them to set up pages on the Mediawiki instance
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on wiki.openstack.org. Beyond the obvious domain problem, this creates
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additional issues:
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* it increases our dependency on a difficult-to-maintain platform
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* it makes it hard to structure information or search within a given community
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scope
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Proposed Change
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===============
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I evaluated various solutions. `Xwiki`_ emerged as a good candidate:
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* open source (although a bit open core)
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* limited maintenance costs, includes `spam prevention tooling`_
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* `"structured wiki"`_ approach, which limits stale pages
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* pluggable into openstackID for authentication
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* support for `subwikis`_ (wikis with a root document and search context which
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live under the same main wiki domain) allowing each community to have what
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looks like a separate wiki
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`Xwiki.com`_, the company behind Xwiki, offers `free hosting`_ for open source
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communities. That offer is for the basic version of their cloud service.
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It includes up to 10 subwikis, unlimited users, 20Gb of storage, and limited
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tech support. They agreed to include usage of a custom domain, as well as
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manual configuration of OpenStackID authentication, although it would
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technically not be covered in the free hosting offer.
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As a proof-of-concept, we propose to accept the free hosting offer and set up
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a wiki farm at wiki.opendev.org. Then we'd evaluate the software using a
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guinea pig community.
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The OSF is helping bootstrapping the OpenInfra labs community (formerly
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known as Massachussets Open Cloud), a community of practice around operating
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OpenStack clouds for academic networks. That community is interested in
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using Opendev for project infrastructure, including Gerrit for managing code
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repositories. At those early stages they need a mailing-list (already set up
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at lists.opendev.org) and a wiki to share information.
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The proposed plan is to create a subwiki for the Open Infra Labs community,
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and after some time evaluate how successful that setup is, before thinking
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about next steps (offer subwikis to other communities, hosting ourselves).
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.. _`Xwiki`: https://xwiki.org
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.. _`spam prevention tooling`: https://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Documentation/AdminGuide/AntiSpam
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.. _`"structured wiki"`: https://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Documentation/UserGuide/Features/ContentOrganization/
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.. _`subwikis`: https://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Documentation/UserGuide/Features/ContentOrganization/WikiVsNestedPages/
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.. _`Xwiki.com`: https://xwiki.com
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.. _`free hosting`: https://xwiki.com/en/Blog/XWikiCloudFreeForOpenSource
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Alternatives
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------------
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Doubling down on Mediawiki
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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We could host separate Mediawikis for each community under OpenDev, based on
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the puppet modules that we use to maintain wiki.openstack.org. However
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mediawiki has not been very pleasant to maintain, and we tried to reduce our
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exposure to it rather than increase it. Xwiki's structured pages model also
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seems more adapted to our needs than Mediawiki's flat model.
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Enabling gitea-wiki
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Gitea has a nice wiki feature (attached to specific repositories rather than
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specific communities). Since we are already using Gitea, it would make sense
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to enable that feature instead of relying on additional software.
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However our gitea system is currently a set of independent setups, kept in
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sync via git pushes from gerrit. To enable the wiki feature, you need to be
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able to write to the git repos within gitea (and keep that consistent across
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the installation), which is still an unsolved problem at this point.
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Additionally, you need to enable user management and authentication support
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in Gitea, which is also an area nobody is planning to work on.
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Direct Xwiki hosting
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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We could host Xwiki directly, rather than rely on Xwiki.com cloud hosting.
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That would have the benefit of not appearing to endorse an open core
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company, and keep our data and access log under our direct control. However,
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the open core model followed by Xwiki.com relies on a relatively sane
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demarcation between xwiki code and "pro" plugins, and Xwiki.com being a
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French company, they have to abide to pretty drastic data collection,
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retention and communication laws. Overall, the benefits of being able to
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outsource hosting and maintenance of the platform, as well as the immediate
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availability of the solution, justifies the positive trade-off.
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Shall the proof-of-concept be successful, or shall we ever exceed the
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10-subwiki limit, we would consider self-hosting the solution. Usage of a
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custom domain reduced the impact of a future transition.
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Open questions
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--------------
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Authentication
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Opendev did not make a clear decision on single-sign-on. As such,
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wiki.opendev.org would be set up with OpenStackID integration to avoid
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creating another set of crednetials, or increasing our UbuntuOne technical
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debt. Should we migrate to another SSO solution in the future, accounts for
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the proof-of-concept can easily be recreated if that ends up being necessary.
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However this issue should be tackled before we expand to other subwikis, and
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certainly before we ever consider moving wiki.openstack.org content.
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SSL
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~~~
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It is unclear at this moment how SSL certificate would be handled for
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wiki.opendev.org. This should be clarified with Xwiki support as we set up
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the instance.
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Implementation
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==============
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Assignee(s)
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-----------
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Primary assignee:
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ttx
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Gerrit Topic
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------------
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Use Gerrit topic "xwiki-farm" for all patches related to this spec.
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.. code-block:: bash
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git-review -t xwiki-farm
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Work Items
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----------
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* Set up main instance with OpenStackID integration, SSL.
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* Set up openinfralabs subwiki and open it up in that community
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* Evaluate after a few months of usage
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Repositories
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------------
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None.
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Servers
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-------
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None.
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DNS Entries
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-----------
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wiki.opendev.org will have to be created a point to wherever XWiki.com
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asks us to point.
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Documentation
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-------------
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Documentation of the wiki set up should be added.
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Security
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--------
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Wiki is isolated from the rest of opendev systems. We should make sure we do
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not accidentally leak profile information (by default Xwiki lists email
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addresses and OIDC addresses in the autogenarted profile page, this needs to
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be disabled).
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Testing
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-------
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None.
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Dependencies
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============
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None.
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