Wanted to ask what WIKI software teams are using to save documentation to / how to's for staff, etc. pro's con's We have an older wiki bare-metal wiki server, that I want to get replaced before it kicks the bucket and was looking into various ones. thanks; CPV
Confluence. On Sat, Mar 14, 2020 at 8:09 AM Craig <cvuljanic@gmail.com> wrote:
Wanted to ask what WIKI software teams are using to save documentation to / how to's for staff, etc.
pro's con's
We have an older wiki bare-metal wiki server, that I want to get replaced before it kicks the bucket and was looking into various ones.
thanks;
CPV
On Sat, 2020-03-14 at 08:07 -0400, Craig wrote:
Wanted to ask what WIKI software teams are using to save documentation to / how to's for staff, etc.
Like any other software, make a set of requirements and then go looking. The order of those two steps is important, though you're allowed to iterate. Remember to match the requirements to the people who will actually be using the thing, not the people who will be managing it :-) Personally I think the plethora of formatting options in things like Confluence tends to distract people into spending vast amounts of time getting their pages to look just right, that would have been better spent capturing more actual information. Or it makes them avoid adding information because it's too hard, or it takes too long, or it invites odious comparisons with other people's entries. Regards, K. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer@biplane.com.au) http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer http://twitter.com/kauer389 GPG fingerprint: 2561 E9EC D868 E73C 8AF1 49CF EE50 4B1D CCA1 5170 Old fingerprint: 8D08 9CAA 649A AFEF E862 062A 2E97 42D4 A2A0 616D
I personally like Dokuwiki a lot. From a usability standpoint, once you spend a few learning the interface, it’s very simplistic and not overwhelming in features. You can always add extensions for stuff you need that isn’t there out of box. From a technical standpoint, it doesn’t need a database. The entire structure is text files, so it can be run on even a super small VM, and doing backups is as easy as tarballing the data directory. It’s got support for LDAP for authentication too, which might be useful. Sent from my iPhone
On Mar 14, 2020, at 7:24 AM, Karl Auer <kauer@biplane.com.au> wrote:
On Sat, 2020-03-14 at 08:07 -0400, Craig wrote:
Wanted to ask what WIKI software teams are using to save documentation to / how to's for staff, etc.
Like any other software, make a set of requirements and then go looking. The order of those two steps is important, though you're allowed to iterate.
Remember to match the requirements to the people who will actually be using the thing, not the people who will be managing it :-)
Personally I think the plethora of formatting options in things like Confluence tends to distract people into spending vast amounts of time getting their pages to look just right, that would have been better spent capturing more actual information. Or it makes them avoid adding information because it's too hard, or it takes too long, or it invites odious comparisons with other people's entries.
Regards, K.
-- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer@biplane.com.au) http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer http://twitter.com/kauer389
GPG fingerprint: 2561 E9EC D868 E73C 8AF1 49CF EE50 4B1D CCA1 5170 Old fingerprint: 8D08 9CAA 649A AFEF E862 062A 2E97 42D4 A2A0 616D
On Sat, Mar 14, 2020 at 7:07 AM Brielle <bruns@2mbit.com> wrote:
I personally like Dokuwiki a lot.
From a usability standpoint, once you spend a few learning the interface, it’s very simplistic and not overwhelming in features. You can always add extensions for stuff you need that isn’t there out of box.
From a technical standpoint, it doesn’t need a database. The entire structure is text files, so it can be run on even a super small VM, and doing backups is as easy as tarballing the data directory.
It’s got support for LDAP for authentication too, which might be useful.
+1 for dokuwiki easy to maintain, has enough features while not become distracting only complaint is that it doesn't support markdown, but the syntax is easy enough (much easier than MediaWiki imo)
I know I'm a bit late to the conversation. We have been using PMWiki for well over 10 yrs now. At the time we started using it there weren't a lot of Wikis out there. MediaWiki obviously was the most popular, but it did not provide the level of secure access that we wanted. We didn't want everyone to be able to edit certain pages. It was also very easy to integrate into CAS. I wrote a cookbook for it years ago. We use groups to allow only certain people to edit certain pages. We also restrict viewing of some pages. Our Security Group keeps some of their stuff restricted. I work for the network team and we prevent everyone but our team from editing our pages. They can view them, just can't mess with them. Hope this helps someone. https://www.pmwiki.org/ -- Greg T. Grimes Senior Network Analyst Information Technology Services Mississippi State University greg.grimes@msstate.edu 662-325-9311 ________________________________________ From: NANOG <nanog-bounces@nanog.org> on behalf of Yang Yu <yang.yu.list@gmail.com> Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2020 06:59 To: Brielle Cc: NANOG list Subject: Re: WIKI documentation Software? On Sat, Mar 14, 2020 at 7:07 AM Brielle <bruns@2mbit.com> wrote:
I personally like Dokuwiki a lot.
From a usability standpoint, once you spend a few learning the interface, it’s very simplistic and not overwhelming in features. You can always add extensions for stuff you need that isn’t there out of box.
From a technical standpoint, it doesn’t need a database. The entire structure is text files, so it can be run on even a super small VM, and doing backups is as easy as tarballing the data directory.
It’s got support for LDAP for authentication too, which might be useful.
+1 for dokuwiki easy to maintain, has enough features while not become distracting only complaint is that it doesn't support markdown, but the syntax is easy enough (much easier than MediaWiki imo)
Mediawiki is ideal in my use. If security is a concern just front it with oauth2 via Caddy[2] and maybe have a look at how Wikipedia self documents infrastructure[3] 1. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki 2. https://caddyserver.com/ 3. https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page On Sun, Mar 15, 2020 at 9:27 AM Grimes, Greg <greg.grimes@msstate.edu> wrote:
I know I'm a bit late to the conversation. We have been using PMWiki for
well over 10 yrs now. At the time we started using it there weren't a lot of Wikis out there. MediaWiki obviously was the most popular, but it did not provide the level of secure access that we wanted. We didn't want everyone to be able to edit certain pages. It was also very easy to integrate into CAS. I wrote a cookbook for it years ago. We use groups to allow only certain people to edit certain pages. We also restrict viewing of some pages. Our Security Group keeps some of their stuff restricted. I work for the network team and we prevent everyone but our team from editing our pages. They can view them, just can't mess with them. Hope this helps someone.
--
Greg T. Grimes Senior Network Analyst Information Technology Services Mississippi State University greg.grimes@msstate.edu 662-325-9311
________________________________________ From: NANOG <nanog-bounces@nanog.org> on behalf of Yang Yu <
yang.yu.list@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2020 06:59 To: Brielle Cc: NANOG list Subject: Re: WIKI documentation Software?
On Sat, Mar 14, 2020 at 7:07 AM Brielle <bruns@2mbit.com> wrote:
I personally like Dokuwiki a lot.
From a usability standpoint, once you spend a few learning the
interface, it’s very simplistic and not overwhelming in features. You can always add extensions for stuff you need that isn’t there out of box.
From a technical standpoint, it doesn’t need a database. The entire
structure is text files, so it can be run on even a super small VM, and doing backups is as easy as tarballing the data directory.
It’s got support for LDAP for authentication too, which might be useful.
+1 for dokuwiki
easy to maintain, has enough features while not become distracting
only complaint is that it doesn't support markdown, but the syntax is easy enough (much easier than MediaWiki imo)
-- - Andrew "lathama" Latham -
If you intend to fully self host something, the full mediawiki software that runs the back end of wikipedia is suitable. It's entirely composed of BSD/GPL/Apache licensed software. If you have any persons who are competent at administering and customizing stuff on normal LAMP stack servers it should be easy to install and understand. The VisualEditor extension is the same WYSIWYG GUI for editing in browser as is used on full wikipedia today. For an example go to any public wikipedia page and hit 'edit', make some changes but don't save them. https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=mediawiki+visualeditor&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 On Sat, Mar 14, 2020 at 7:07 AM Brielle <bruns@2mbit.com> wrote:
I personally like Dokuwiki a lot.
From a usability standpoint, once you spend a few learning the interface, it’s very simplistic and not overwhelming in features. You can always add extensions for stuff you need that isn’t there out of box.
From a technical standpoint, it doesn’t need a database. The entire structure is text files, so it can be run on even a super small VM, and doing backups is as easy as tarballing the data directory.
It’s got support for LDAP for authentication too, which might be useful.
Sent from my iPhone
On Mar 14, 2020, at 7:24 AM, Karl Auer <kauer@biplane.com.au> wrote:
On Sat, 2020-03-14 at 08:07 -0400, Craig wrote:
Wanted to ask what WIKI software teams are using to save documentation to / how to's for staff, etc.
Like any other software, make a set of requirements and then go looking. The order of those two steps is important, though you're allowed to iterate.
Remember to match the requirements to the people who will actually be using the thing, not the people who will be managing it :-)
Personally I think the plethora of formatting options in things like Confluence tends to distract people into spending vast amounts of time getting their pages to look just right, that would have been better spent capturing more actual information. Or it makes them avoid adding information because it's too hard, or it takes too long, or it invites odious comparisons with other people's entries.
Regards, K.
-- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer@biplane.com.au) http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer http://twitter.com/kauer389
GPG fingerprint: 2561 E9EC D868 E73C 8AF1 49CF EE50 4B1D CCA1 5170 Old fingerprint: 8D08 9CAA 649A AFEF E862 062A 2E97 42D4 A2A0 616D
[Disclaimer: former Atlassian Reseller and Certified Confluence Administrator here.] Atlassian Confluence. It’s not cheap, and it certainly has its flaws, but it incorporates one feature that most (all?) other wikis don’t – hierarchy. You can organize information (pages) hierarchically like a directory structure. The key here is that some people think hierarchically, and some people don’t. For the hierarchical thinkers, a free-form wiki (i.e. most of them) is absolute hell to navigate, and you can still cross-link pages and use tags and categories, so the non-hierarchical thinkers are still just as much at home as with other products. Another plus, despite the cost, is you can host it on-site or in the cloud, depending on your needs. -Adam Adam Thompson Consultant, Infrastructure Services [[MERLIN LOGO]]<https://www.merlin.mb.ca/> 100 - 135 Innovation Drive Winnipeg, MB, R3T 6A8 (204) 977-6824 or 1-800-430-6404 (MB only) athompson@merlin.mb.ca<mailto:athompson@merlin.mb.ca> www.merlin.mb.ca<http://www.merlin.mb.ca/> From: NANOG <nanog-bounces@nanog.org> On Behalf Of Craig Sent: Saturday, March 14, 2020 7:08 AM To: nanog group <nanog@nanog.org> Subject: WIKI documentation Software? Wanted to ask what WIKI software teams are using to save documentation to / how to's for staff, etc. pro's con's We have an older wiki bare-metal wiki server, that I want to get replaced before it kicks the bucket and was looking into various ones. thanks; CPV
I've been using MoinMoin wiki for years. It hasn't been updated for quite a while, but it has worked really well for me, is trivial to install, uses text file backend so no need for a database, allows for hierarchical structure, is pretty fast, is very very light weight and extensible, built on python and free. I don't know if there is a docker container, but I'm thinking of building one. If you want something simple, stable, older, small and usable you might take a look at MoinMoin. If you want a docker container, ask and I'll probably build one. Geoff On 3/14/20 2:35 PM, Gavin Henry wrote:
I think DokuWiki does this and as an added bonus saves all as text files.
We've been using BookStack. It's easy for staff to use and understand. We gave each department their own "shelf" in there and can assign rights to shelves so managers of the departments can add their own books/chapters/pages. Once you dive in you'll see how it's organized but it's a really solid platform. Supports LDAP auth as well. Great platform, we've loved it. https://www.bookstackapp.com/ Adam Kennedy Systems Engineer adamkennedy@watchcomm.net | 800-589-3837 x120 <800-589-3837;120> Watch Communications | www.watchcomm.net <https://www.watchcomm.net?utm_source=signature&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=general_signature> 3225 W Elm St, Suite A Lima, OH 45805 <https://twitter.com/watchcommnet> <https://www.facebook.com/watchcommunications> <http://www.linkedin.com/company/watch-communications> On Sat, Mar 14, 2020 at 7:09 PM <nanog08@mulligan.org> wrote:
I've been using MoinMoin wiki for years. It hasn't been updated for quite a while, but it has worked really well for me, is trivial to install, uses text file backend so no need for a database, allows for hierarchical structure, is pretty fast, is very very light weight and extensible, built on python and free.
I don't know if there is a docker container, but I'm thinking of building one.
If you want something simple, stable, older, small and usable you might take a look at MoinMoin.
If you want a docker container, ask and I'll probably build one.
Geoff
On 3/14/20 2:35 PM, Gavin Henry wrote:
I think DokuWiki does this and as an added bonus saves all as text files.
Trac — http://trac.edgewall.org Extensible, integrates with subversion (and other code repos), relatively easy to install, maintain and use. M Sent via iDevice. ________________________________ From: NANOG <nanog-bounces@nanog.org> on behalf of Craig <cvuljanic@gmail.com> Sent: Saturday, March 14, 2020 8:07:52 AM To: nanog group <nanog@nanog.org> Subject: WIKI documentation Software? Wanted to ask what WIKI software teams are using to save documentation to / how to's for staff, etc. pro's con's We have an older wiki bare-metal wiki server, that I want to get replaced before it kicks the bucket and was looking into various ones. thanks; CPV
Craig <cvuljanic@gmail.com> writes:
Wanted to ask what WIKI software teams are using to save documentation to / how to's for staff, etc.
On the wiki side: +1 for dokuwiki Given that more and more people are automating stuff and this way ending up git anyway: Write your doku as markdown, put it into git, generate static web pages. For people who like editing via a GUI can use gitlab or something similar. This approach has some advantages: - You always have (a more or less) current version of your documentation offline - You can just use grep to find stuff Jens -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Delbrueckstr. 41 | 12051 Berlin, Germany | +49-151-18721264 | | http://blog.quux.de | jabber: jenslink@quux.de | --------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
We're a new group and at recommendation of this thread, I set up dokuwiki for us and I like it already! On Tue, Mar 17, 2020 at 1:54 PM Jens Link <lists@quux.de> wrote:
Craig <cvuljanic@gmail.com> writes:
Wanted to ask what WIKI software teams are using to save documentation to / how to's for staff, etc.
On the wiki side: +1 for dokuwiki
Given that more and more people are automating stuff and this way ending up git anyway:
Write your doku as markdown, put it into git, generate static web pages. For people who like editing via a GUI can use gitlab or something similar.
This approach has some advantages:
- You always have (a more or less) current version of your documentation offline - You can just use grep to find stuff
Jens -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Delbrueckstr. 41 | 12051 Berlin, Germany | +49-151-18721264 | | http://blog.quux.de | jabber: jenslink@quux.de | --------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greatly appreciate all these suggestions, we are going to test several of these packages out and determine which will be best for us. Thanks! Then comes the task of getting the legacy wiki pages off the Mac wiki server over to the new wiki Argg More figuring out to do. On Tue, Mar 17, 2020 at 9:22 PM Billy Crook <BCrook@unrealservers.net> wrote:
We're a new group and at recommendation of this thread, I set up dokuwiki for us and I like it already!
On Tue, Mar 17, 2020 at 1:54 PM Jens Link <lists@quux.de> wrote:
Craig <cvuljanic@gmail.com> writes:
Wanted to ask what WIKI software teams are using to save documentation
to / how to's for staff, etc.
On the wiki side: +1 for dokuwiki
Given that more and more people are automating stuff and this way ending up git anyway:
Write your doku as markdown, put it into git, generate static web pages. For people who like editing via a GUI can use gitlab or something similar.
This approach has some advantages:
- You always have (a more or less) current version of your documentation offline - You can just use grep to find stuff
Jens --
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Delbrueckstr. 41 | 12051 Berlin, Germany | +49-151-18721264 | | http://blog.quux.de | jabber: jenslink@quux.de | --------------- |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 3/17/20 8:25 PM, Craig wrote:
Then comes the task of getting the legacy wiki pages off the Mac wiki server over to the new wiki
Oh, man. If you figure that one out, let me know. I'm in the same boat there. Steve -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steven Saner <ssaner@hubris.net> Voice: 316-858-3000 Director of Network Operations Fax: 316-858-3001 Hubris Communications http://www.hubris.net
participants (17)
-
Adam Kennedy -
Adam Thompson -
Andrew Latham -
Bill Woodcock -
Billy Crook -
Brielle -
Craig -
Eric Kuhnke -
Gavin Henry -
Grimes, Greg -
Jens Link -
Josh Baird -
Karl Auer -
Meenoo Shivdasani -
nanog08＠mulligan.org -
Steve Saner -
Yang Yu