TWiki CGI and Command Line Scripts

Programs on the TWiki server performing actions such as rendering, saving and renaming topics.

The TWiki scripts are located in the twiki/bin and twiki/tools directories. This topic describes the interfaces to some of those scripts. All scripts in the twiki/bin directory can be called from the CGI (Common Gateway Interface) environment or from the command line. The scripts in the twiki/tools directory can only be called from the command line.

CGI Scripts

Details on CGI scripts located in the twiki/bin directory.

General Information

CGI environment

In the CGI environment parameters are passed to the scripts via the URL and URL parameters. Environment variables are also used to determine the user performing the action. If the environment is not set up, the default TWiki user is used (usually guest).

Command-line

You must be cd'd to the twiki/bin directory to run the scripts from the command line. To avoid issues with file permissions, run the scripts as the web server user such as nobody or www.

Parameters are passed using '-name' - for example,

$ cd /usr/local/twiki/bin
$ save -topic MyWeb.MyTopic -user admin -action save -text "New text of the topic"

All parameters require a value.

Common parameters

All the scripts accept a number of common parameters. The first two components of the URL after the script name are taken as the web and the topic, respectively. Standard URL parameters are:

Parameter	Description	Default
topic	If this is set to a URL, TWiki will immediately redirect to that URL. Otherwise it overrides the URL and is taken as the topic name (you can pass Web.TopicName)
user	Command-line only; set the name of the user performing the action. Note: this usage is inherently insecure, as it bypasses webserver login constraints. For this reason only authorised users should be allowed to execute scripts from the command line.
skin	Overrides the default skin path (see TWikiSkins)
cover	Specifies temporary skin path to prepend to the skin path for this script only (see TWikiSkins)

attach

Despite the name, this script doesn't actually attach a file to a topic - for that, use upload. This script is part of the transactions sequence executed when a file is uploaded from the browser. it just generates the "new attachment" page for a topic.

Parameter	Description	Default
filename	Name of existing attachment (if provided, this is a "manage attachment" action)	none (in which case this is a "new attachment" action)

changes

Shows all the changes in the given web.

The changes script can receive one parameter:

Parameter	Description	Default
minor	If 0, show only major changes. If 1, show all the changes (both minor and major)	0

The main difference between invoking this script and using WebChanges is that WebChanges is based on a %SEARCH%, while this script reads the changes file in each web, making it much faster.

NOTE: The result from changes script and the topic WebChanges can be different, if the changes file is deleted from a web. In particular, in new installations the changes script will return no results while the WebChanges topic will.

configure

configure is the browser script used for inspection and configuration of the TWiki configuration. None of the parameters to this script are useable for any purpose except configure.

edit

The edit scipt understands the following parameters, typically supplied by HTML input fields:

Parameter	Description	Default
action	Optional. Use the editaction template instead of the standard edit. If action=text, then hide the form. If action=form hide the normal text area and only edit the form.
onlynewtopic	If set, error if topic already exists
onlywikiname	If set, error if topic name is not a WikiWord
templatetopic	The name of the template topic, copied to get the initial content
text	Initial text for the topic
topicparent	The parent topic
formtemplate	Name of the form to instantiate in the topic. Overrides the form set in the templatetopic if defined.
contenttype	Optional parameter that defines the application type to write into the CGI header. Defaults to text/html. May be used to invoke alternative client applications
anyname	Any parameter can passed to the new topic; if the template topic contains %URLPARAM{"anyname"}%, it will be replaced by its value
breaklock	If set, any lease conflicts will be ignored, and the edit will proceed even if someone is already editing the topic.

Form field values are passed in parameters named 'field' - for example, if I have a field Status the parameter name is Status.

1. The first sequence of ten or more X characters in the topic name will be converted on save to a number such that the resulting topic name is unique in the target web.

NOTE: most skins support the definition of EDIT_SKIN, which is used as the value of the cover parameter in edit URLs. This allows you to override the default edit skin on a web, topic or user basis.

login

Used for logging in when TWiki login is being used (e.g TemplateLoginManager).

Parameter	Description	Default
origurl	URL that was being accessed when an access violation occurred. the login process will redirect to this URL if it is successful	none
username	username of user logging in	none
password	password of user logging in	none

logon

Used for logging in when Web Server authentication is being used (e.g. ApacheLoginManager). The script does nothing; it is purely a placeholder for triggering the login process. The webserver will be set up to require a valid user to access this script, thus triggering the webserver login process.

manage

Performs a range of management functions.

Parameter	Description	Default
action	One of createweb, deleteUserAccount, editSettings or saveSettings	none

action=createweb

Parameter	Description	Default
newweb	Name of the new web	''
baseweb	Name of the web to copy to create the new web	''
webbgcolor	value for WEBBGCOLOR	''
sitemapwhat	Value for SITEMAPWHAT	''
sitemapuseto	Value for SITEMAPUSETO	''
nosearchall	Value for NOSEARCHALL	''

action=deleteUserAccount

Unregisters (removes) the currently logged-in user.

Parameter	Description	Default
password	Users' password	none

action=editSettings

No parameters

action=bulkRegister

See BulkRegistration.

Parameter	Description	Default
OverwriteHomeTopics	Whether to overwrite existing home topics or not	false
EmailUsersWithDetails	Whether to mail registered users or not	false
LogTopic	Topic to save the log in	Same as topic name, with 'Result' appended.

action=saveSettings

Parameter	Description	Default
text	Text of the topic	''
originalrev	Revision that the edit started on	Most recent revision

All other parameters may be interpreted as form fields, depending on the current form definition in the topic.

oops

This script is mainly used for rendering pages containing error messages, though it is also used for some functional actions such as manage pages (move topic etc).

oops templates are used with the oops script to generate system messages. This is done to make internationalisation or other local customisations simple.

The oops script supports the following parameters:

Parameter	Description	Default
template	Name of the template file to display
def	Optional, can be set to the name of a single definition within template. This definition will be instantiated in the template wherever %INSTANTIATE% is seen. This lets you use a single template file for many messages. For an example, see oopsmanagebad.tmpl.
paramN	Where N is an integer from 1 upwards. These values will be substituted into template for %PARAM1% etc.

passwd

Parameter	Description	Default
action	one of changePassword or resetPassword	none

Other parameters as described under manage, action=changePassword.

action=changePassword

Parameter	Description	Default
username	Username
oldpassword	Existing password (plain text)
password	New password (plain text)
passwordA	New password confirmation (plain text)
TopicName	?

preview

This script is deprecated. Its functions are covered by the save script.

rdiff

Renders the differences between version of a TWiki topic

Parameter	Description	Default
rev1	the higher revision
rev2	the lower revision
render	the rendering style {sequential, sidebyside, raw, debug}	DIFFRENDERSTYLE, sequential
type	{history, diff, last} history diff, version to version, last version to previous	diff
context	number of lines of context

TODO:

• add a {word} render style

register

Parameter	Description	Default
action	register or verify or resetPassword or approve

rename

Used for renaming topics.

Parameter	Description	Default
skin	skin(s) to use
newweb	new web name
newtopic	new topic name
breaklock
attachment
confirm	if defined, requires a second level of confirmation
currentwebonly	if defined, searches current web only for links to this topic
nonwikiword	if defined, a non-wikiword is acceptable for the new topic name

resetpasswd

Reset the password for a single or multiple users

Parameter	Description	Default
LoginName	list of usernames to reset	none - error if not set
Introduction	message to be sent alongside the reset, most often used to announce to the user that they have been given an account.	''

This is used by BulkResetPassword and ResetPassword. Only users belonging to the TWikiAdminGroup can provide a list of LoginNames, non-admins can only provide a single LoginName.

BulkRegistration provides the means to create multiple accounts but it does not announce those accounts to the users who own them. BulkResetPassword is used to assign the passwords, the Introduction is used to explain why they are receiving the mail.

rest

This REST (Representational State Transfer) script can be invoked via http in a similar way as the view script (see Invocation Examples, below) to execute a function that is associated to a "subject" and a "verb" (see below). It'll print the result directly to the stream unless the endPoint parameter is specified, in which case the control is redirected to the given topic.

The rest script itself uses one parameter:

endPoint

Where to redirect the response once the request is served, in the form "Web.Topic"

Any additional parameters are passed directly to the function (i.e: The function can get any other parameter using the CGI $query object)

Invocation Examples

The rest script assumes that it will be called with URL in the form:

http://my.host/bin/rest/<subject>/<verb>

where <subject> must be the WikiWord name of one of the installed TWikiPlugins, and the <verb> is the alias for the function registered using the registerRESTHandler. The <subject> and <verb> are then used to lookup and call the registered function.

Functions outside the Plugins also can be registered, but please consider the security implications of allowing URL access, as functions can sidestep TWiki Authentication & Authorisation settings.

<subject> and <verb> are checked for illegal characters exactly in the same way as the web and topic names.

As an example, the EmptyPlugin has registered a function to be used with the rest script under the subject EmptyPlugin and the verb example. Click below to see the rest script in action (run as TWikiGuest).

Call the Plugin

You can also call the function from the command line, but this will be run as the TWikiAdminGroup (as it is assumed that shell access is secure) - eg:

./rest EmptyPlugin.example

Note that for calls to Plugins, they must be enabled in configure.

save

The save script performs a range of save-related functions, as selected by the action parameter.

Parameter	Description	Default
action_save=1	default; save, return to view, dontnotify is OFF
action_quietsave=1	save, and return to view, dontnotify is ON
action_checkpoint	save and redirect to the edit script, dontnotify is ON
action_cancel	exit without save, return to view
action_preview	preview edited text
action_addform	Redirect to the "change form" page.
action_replaceform...	Redirect to the "change form" page.
action_delRev	Administrators only delete the most recent revision of the topic - all other parameters are ignored. You have to be a member of TWikiAdminGroup to use this, and not all store implementations will support it.
action_repRev	Administrators only replace the text of the most recent revision of the topic with the text in the text parameter. text must included embedded meta-data tags. All other parameters are ignored. You have to be a member of TWikiAdminGroup to use this, and not all store implementations will support it.
onlynewtopic	If set, error if topic already exists
onlywikiname	If set, error if topic name is not a WikiWord
dontnotify	if defined, suppress change notification
templatetopic	Name of a topic to use as a template for the text and form
text	New text of the topic
forcenewrevision	if set, forces a revision even if TWiki thinks one isn't needed
topicparent	If 'none' remove any current topic parent. If the name of a topic, set the topic parent to this.
formtemplate	if defined, use the named template for the form
editaction	When action is checkpoint, add form or replace form..., this is used as the action parameter to the edit script that is redirected to after the save is complete.
originalrev	Revision on which the edit started.

Any errors will cause a redirect to an oops page.

The parameters are interpreted in according to the following rules.

1. The first sequence of ten or more X characters in the topic name will be converted to a number such that the resulting topic name is unique in the target web.
2. When the action is save, checkpoint, quietsave, or preview:
   1. The new text is taken from the text parameter, if it is defined,
      • otherwise it is taken from the templatetopic, if it is defined,
      • otherwise it is taken from the previous version of the topic, if any,
   2. The name of the new form is taken from the formtemplate, if defined
      • otherwise it is taken from the templatetopic, if defined,
      • otherwise it is taken from the previous version of the topic, if any,
      • otherwise no form is attached.
   3. The value for each field in the form is taken from the query, if it is defined
      • otherwise it is taken from the templatetopic, if defined,
      • otherwise it is taken from the previous version of the topic, if any,
      • otherwise it defaults to the empty string.

Merging is only enabled if the topic text comes from text and originalrev is > 0 and is not the same as the revision number of the most recent revision. If merging is enabled both the topic and the meta-data are merged.

Form field values are passed in parameters named 'field' - for example, if I have a field Status the parameter name is Status.

search

CGI gateway to the %SEARCH% functionality driven by the following CGI parameters:

Parameter:	Description:	Default:
"text"	Search term. Is a keyword search, literal search or regular expression search, depending on the type parameter. SearchHelp has more	required
search="text"	(Alternative to above)	N/A
web="Name" web="Main, Know" web="all"	Comma-separated list of webs to search. See TWikiVariables#VarSEARCH for more details.	Current web
topic="WebPreferences" topic="*Bug"	Limit search to topics: A topic, a topic with asterisk wildcards, or a list of topics separated by comma.	All topics in a web
excludetopic="Web*" excludetopic="WebHome, WebChanges"	Exclude topics from search: A topic, a topic with asterisk wildcards, or a list of topics separated by comma.	None
type="keyword" type="literal" type="regex"	Do a keyword search like soap "web service" -shampoo; a literal search like web service; or RegularExpression search like soap;web service;!shampoo	%SEARCHVAR- DEFAULTTYPE% preferences setting (literal)
scope="topic" scope="text" scope="all"	Search topic name (title); the text (body) of topic; or all (both)	"text"
order="topic" order="created" order="modified" order="editby" order=  "formfield(name)"	Sort the results of search by the topic names, topic creation time, last modified time, last editor, or named field of TWikiForms. The sorting is done web by web; in case you want to sort across webs, create a formatted table and sort it with TablePlugin's initsort	Sort by topic name
limit="all" limit="16"	Limit the number of results returned. This is done after sorting if order is specified	All results
date="..."	limits the results to those pages with latest edit time in the given TimeInterval.	All results
reverse="on"	Reverse the direction of the search	Ascending search
casesensitive="on"	Case sensitive search	Ignore case
bookview="on"	BookView search, e.g. show complete topic text	Show topic summary
nonoise="on"	Shorthand for nosummary="on" nosearch="on" nototal="on" zeroresults="off" noheader="on" noempty="on"	Off
nosummary="on"	Show topic title only	Show topic summary
nosearch="on"	Suppress search string	Show search string
noheader="on"	Suppress search header Topics: Changed: By:	Show search header
nototal="on"	Do not show number of topics found	Show number
zeroresults="off"	Suppress all output if there are no hits	zeroresults="on", displays: "Number of topics: 0"
noempty="on"	Suppress results for webs that have no hits.	Show webs with no hits
header="..." format="..."	Custom format results: see FormattedSearch for usage, variables & examples	Results in table
expandvariables="on"	Expand variables before applying a FormattedSearch on a search hit. Useful to show the expanded text, e.g. to show the result of a SpreadSheetPlugin %CALC{}% instead of the formula	Raw text
multiple="on"	Multiple hits per topic. Each hit can be formatted. The last token is used in case of a regular expression ";" and search	Only one hit per topic
nofinalnewline="on"	If on, the search variable does not end in a line by itself. Any text continuing immediately after the search tag on the same line will be rendered as part of the table generated by the search, if appropriate.	off
separator=", "	Line separator between hits	Newline "$n"

statistics

Refresh the WebStatistics topics in range of webs.

Parameter	Description	Default
webs	list of webs to run stats on	none

twiki

Single-script interface to the functionality of all the other scripts. Experimental, not for production use. Read the code if you want to know more.

upload

Uploads an attachment to a topic. The HTTP request is expected to be in multipart/form-data format.

Parameter	Description	Default
hidefile	if defined, will not show file in attachment table
filepath	local (client) path name of the file being uploaded. This is used to look up the data for the file in the HTTP query.
filename	deprecated, do not use
filecomment	Comment to associate with file in attachment table
createlink	if defined, will create a link to file at end of topic
changeproperties	if defined, this is a property change operation only - no file will be uploaded.	null

You can use a tool like curl to upload files from the command line using this script.

view

Used for viewing topics.

Parameter	Description	Default
raw=on	Shows the text of the topic in a scrollable textarea
raw=debug	As raw=on, but also shows the metadata (forms etc) associated with the topic.
raw=text	Shows only the source of the topic, as plain text (Content-type: text/plain). Only shows the body text, not the form or other meta-data.
raw=all	Shows only the source of the topic, as plain text (Content-type: text/plain), with embedded meta-data. This may be useful if you want to extract the source of a topic to a local file on disc.
contenttype	Allows you to specify a different Content-Type: (e.g. contenttype=text/plain)
rev	Revision to view (e.g. rev=45)
template	Allows you to specify a different skin template, overriding the 'view' template the view script would normally use. The default template is view. For example, you could specify /twiki/bin/view/TWiki/TWikiScripts?template=edit. This is mainly useful when you have specialised templates for a TWiki Application.

For historical reasons, the view script has a special interpretation of the text skin. In earlier TWiki versions the skin=text parameter was used like this: http://.../view/MyWeb/MyTopic?skin=text&contenttype=text/plain&raw=on which shows the topic as plain text; useful for those who want to download plain text for the topic. Using skin=text this way is DEPRECATED, use raw=text instead.

viewfile

Used for viewing attachments. Normally, a site will publish the attachments (pub) directory using a URL. However if it contains sensitive information, you will want to protect attachments using TWikiAccessControls. In this case, you can use the viewfile script to give access to attachments while still checking access controls.

Parameter	Description	Default
filename	name of attachment
rev	Revision to view

Command Line Scripts

Details on command line scripts located in the twiki/tools directory.

geturl.pl

This is a very simple script to get the content of a web site. It is marked as deprecated and might be removed (or enhanced) in a future TWiki release. Its functions are covered by the standard wget and curl commands.

• Usage: geturl <host> <path> [<port> [<header>]]
• Example: geturl some.domain /some/dir/file.html 80
• Will get: http://some.domain:80/some/dir/file.html

rewriteshebang.pl

Simple script to rewrite the #!/usr/bin/perl shebang lines specific to your local Perl installation. It will rewrite the first line of all your TWiki cgi scripts so they use a different shebang line. Use it if your perl is in a non-standard location, or you want to use a different interpreter (such as 'speedy').

tick_twiki.pl

This script executes a number of non-essential regular administration tasks that will help keep your TWiki healthy and happy, such as removing expired sessions and lease files.

It is intended to be run as a cron job or a scheduled task once a week. Example crontab entry:
0 0 * * 0 cd /usr/twiki/bin && perl ../tools/tick_twiki.pl

Note: The script has to be run by a user who can write files created by the webserver user.

Related Topics: AdminDocumentationCategory, DeveloperDocumentationCategory