[[meta title="Mirroring the web site"]]

In keeping with the philosophy of distributed development, our web site is
stored in our git repositories and converted into html by
[ikiwiki](http://ikiwiki.info/).

We're mirrored on several servers. Rather than using ikiwiki's [pinger/pingee
approach to distribution](http://ikiwiki.info/tips/distributed_wikis/), we've
opted for a method that uses ssh.

The steps for creating a new mirror are:

## Steps to take on the mirror server ##

Add etch-backports to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

    deb http://www.backports.org/debian etch-backports main contrib non-free

Add the following lines to your /etc/apt/preferences file:

    Package: ikiwiki
    Pin: release a=etch-backports
    Pin-Priority: 999

    # needed by ikiwiki
    Package: libcgi-formbuilder-perl
    Pin: release a=etch-backports
    Pin-Priority: 999
    
    Package: git-core 
    Pin: release a=etch-backports
    Pin-Priority: 999

Install git-core and ikiwiki

    aptitude update; aptitutde install git-core ikiwiki

Create a new user. Change the new users shell to git-shell:

    adduser -s /usr/bin/git-shell <username>

Add webmaster@george's public key to this user's ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file

Add web site configuration that the user has write access to. If you are using Apache, include the following rewrite:

    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^(YOURHOSTNAME|web)\.monkeysphere\.info$ [NC]
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^$
    RewriteRule ^/(.*) http://web.monkeysphere.info/$1 [L,R]

Upload and edit ikiwiki.setup.sample from the docs directory

As the new user, create two new git repos

    mkdir monkeysphere.git; cd monkeysphere.git; git init --bare; cd ../
    git clone monkeysphere.git # this will create a second git repo called monkeysphere

Change the mode of monkeysphere.git/hooks/post-receive to 755

    chmod 755 monkesphere.git/hooks/post-receive

Edit the file so that it executes the post-receive hook ikiwiki generates (as
you specified in the ikiwiki.setup file)

## Admin steps to take to enable the configuration ##

Add a new dns record for SERVERNAME.monkeysphere.info. 

Test the ssh connection by logging in as webmaster@george.riseup.net

Add the new server as a remote on webmaster@george.riseup.net:monkeysphere.git

    cd ~/monkeysphere.git
    git add remote SERVERNAME USER@SERVERNAME.monkeysphere.info:/path/to/repo

Test:

    git push SERVERNAME