Here is the full contents of my notes on this topic as I was learning about DW - some might be a bit outdated by now. Googling will help with further details, or post more specific questions here if you like.
Note that much of this applies to a specific use case, where I completely wipe and regenerate my DW's content with outside tools. This assumes that all the meta-data is expendable, so if it's not in your case you will not be able to use that workflow.
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filesystem locations and meanings
http://www.dokuwiki.org/devel:dirlayout
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Don't rely on the version control - possible to turn it off? (asked in the forum)
Do frequent commits to SVN
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HTTRACK as a spidering tool
rebuild the searchindex
http://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:searchindex
Erase entire cache and/or old wiki revisions
http://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:cacherevisionseraser
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flat files data storage
Datafiles are stored in plain-txt, so:
can easily be read, modified, compared, auto-generated via external (non-wiki) programs - owner must be www-data, or set permissions to 666?
are readable even if your server goes down
easy to back up, through server scripts or FTP/sFTP
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moving from staging/development to production/publishing server
copy the files inside conf/ and data/ to your new DokuWiki-installation
> Just copy the files over. DokuWiki will automatically build the search and meta indexes.
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backups are really simple. All you need to do is copy the files. The easiest way is just to backup your whole DokuWiki directory.
If you want to save some space you should at least backup the following directories:
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Remember to back up all raw text files and data.
renaming/moving txt files in the file system or gz files in the attic
will break links and metadata. prevents DokuWiki from keeping a coherent page history (old revisions).
Via FTP using wget
FTP-Login stored in $HOME/.netrc
machine example.net login USER password PW
#!/bin/sh -e
# backup data from wiki (FTP)
unset
url="ftp://example.net/"
backup="/path/to/backup"
wget -q --no-cache -nH -c -t0 --mirror -P$backup -i- <<EOF
$url/data/pages
$url/data/meta
$url/data/media
$url/data/attic
$url/conf
EOF
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cache, locks, and index - no problem
meta and attic if you're willing to lose those
tmp
don't delete the folders themselves
purpose of empty files named ‘_dummy’ - empty at installation time, but still must exist
start from a clean start / blank state as follows (again under Unix) but be warned that this will mean losing all your historical information (i.e. recent changes):
cat /dev/null > /dokuwiki_base/data/changes.log
rm -Rf /dokuwiki_base/data/attic/*
rm -Rf /dokuwiki_base/data/cache/?
rm -Rf /dokuwiki_base/data/cache/*.idx
rm -Rf /dokuwiki_base/data/cache/purgefile
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Problem from full-text search - doesn't index short words (3 characters or less)
Do not create pages with short names, including this: is_not_OK
Backlinks search uses the full-text index, so short page names don't show up!
alternative ways to create pages ("standard" way being to create a link first)
enter the name of a new page directly in the search field
Create this page
create a .txt file inside the directory (namespace) wherein you want it to reside. The name of the file is the name of the page.
URL in your Browser
plugins tagged with 'create'
NOTE: Make sure you properly link your newly created page from other pages, when using one of the alternative methods. Otherwise no one may find your page. (Though these pages may still be found by the index feature or through the search engine.)
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Renaming pages
Create a page with the new name, and copy the content. Instead of erasing the old page, it is better to replace the content by:
This page has been moved to [[new_name]]
Get a list of backlinks by clicking on the page name appearing at the top
plugin for embedding list in page:
http://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:backlinks
Just doing it in the filesystem will break meta information
[Q?] Test, minimize impact - and history (/attic, no problem)
Helper Tools for renaming pages
http://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:editx
seems more robust than
http://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:openas
but neither fix back-links to the old address to point to the new. Editx leaves a redirect page in place,
check out this for auto-redirect
http://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:mredirect
not sure if this works with newer versions
http://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:goto
but it will allow redirect to specific anchor/section!
and you can edit the backlink source pages manually over time
bash script for handling inline backlinks
http://www.dokuwiki.org/backlinks
for f in $(find . -type f -name "*.txt"); do sed -i 's/\[\[namespace1:namespace_old/\[\[namespace1:namespace-new:/g' $f; done
other examples here:
http://www.dokuwiki.org/faq:howto-rename-pages
you will lose your page revision history this way
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Old Revisions, version control
http://www.dokuwiki.org/attic
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$conf['mediadir'] = 'data/pages';
$conf['mediaweb'] = 'data/pages';
http://blog.mmassonnet.info/2006/10/dokuwiki.html
allows ftp sync to the pages folder?
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removed empty directories **under** these (not e.g. "attic" itself)
see
http://www.dokuwiki.org/tips:maintenance
e.g. find "$1"/{attic,cache,index,locks,media,meta,pages,tmp}/ \
-mindepth 1 -type d -empty -print0 | xargs -0r rmdir