Gitit Salt

Automated install and setup of a Gitit wiki.

Gitit Salt installs the VCS backed Gitit wiki on Ubuntu using the Apache web server as a proxy. SaltStack and Cabal are used to install and configure the needed software.

Quick Start

If you have an Ubuntu 12.04 server handy these instructions will use salt to install and configure gitit + apache.

1. Install Salt:

   wget -O - http://bootstrap.saltstack.org | sudo sh
   

2. Grab the code:

   git clone https://github.com/jlisee/gitit-salt
   

3. Install our salt minion configuration:

   sudo cp gitit-salt/salt/minion /etc/salt/minion
   

4. Install the salt state files:

   sudo mkdir -p /srv
   sudo cp -r gitit-salt/salt/roots /srv/salt
   

5. Instruct salt to configuration our server:

   sudo salt-call state.highstate
   

6. See you need wiki at: http://youserver.com/

Testing with Vagrant

If you don't have a server handy, you can use Vagrant to create and manage a local virtual machine for you. The Vagrantfile in this repository creates an Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit VM and uses our salt files to setup the machine.

1. Install Vagrant
2. Install Salty Vagrant (vagrant plugin install vagrant-salt)
3. Run vagrant up
4. Wait several minutes for everything to compile (more than 10, cabal is really slow).
5. See you new wiki here

What exactly is this doing?

Best to just lay out what is done step by step:

1. Install ghc (haskell compiler), apache (web server), cabal-install (Haskell's almost package manager) with apt-get.
2. Use cabal to install gitit.
3. Setup gitit in /srv/gitit with the wiki using the git repository in /srv/gitit/wikidata.
4. Create a gitit upstart service (/etc/init/gitit) serving on port
6. Configure apache to forward all requests to the local gitit server (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/gitit).

How does all this work?

We use the magic of Salt to configure our server. Salt is a configuration management tool (like Ansible, Puppet or Chef). It uses all the stuff in this repository to make sure the right software is installed, the right configuration files are in place, and the right services are running.

With salt stack you define a set of states which define the configuration you want a system to be in. Those states are described in yaml files, optionally parametrized by data stored in pillars (also yaml files). If those states determine the system needs changes, they execute those with modules.

Modules and states are implemented in python. In this repository you fill find custom states and modules for managing Haskell based software with cabal install.

More information

There are a lot of moving parts here, to learn more about them check out the documentation sources below:

• Gitit README
• Salt Stack Docs
• Vagrant Docs