Deployment

With Deployment is meant the installation by someone or a group of people of kiwix on many computers. This can be kiwix or kiwix-serve, computers may have the same or different operatings systems ; hardware can also be non-homogenous. But within a deployment the content deployed is the same, this is more or less one version of Kiwix with the same pre-defined content.

Introduction

Currently, a lot of things are already possible and that is why we have already successful deployments. The problem is that:

1. Not trivial to do
2. Not everything is possible

If you want to deploy Kiwix, you need to prepare a "package" (or a way to get) :

• Kiwix the software (for one or many HW & OSes)
• Content, so the ZIM files
• The full text search index
• The library which links kiwix, content and index together.
• Optionally a solution to install that (Windows installer, scripts, ...)

To copy this things to each computers the best ways are:

• LAN (optionally wireless)
• USB storage (flash or HD)
• DVD

File should be copied and eventually installed.

Status

Please read following pages to be familiar with the solution we already have to prepare such things:

• Directory structure for portable version of Kiwix (Windows)
• The command line tool to build libraries
• The XML library file format
• Old script used to build portable version of Kiwix (ZIP file) with content like available at http://download.kiwix.org/portable/

Remark: Currently kiwix is not able anymore to be spreaded as Windows portable version with content. During the library rewriting the availability to get library file with ZIM and search index relative paths were removed. This is a regression which need to be fixed.

Future

Kiwix Software

Kiwix is a software which does not need an install process: you may just copy the mandatory files somewhere and run it. Installation does mainly create a few icons, move the software in a "standard" place on the HD and propose also an easy way to remove it afterwards.

But we do not have static version of Kiwix for GNU/Linux, so this is not possible here to have a portable version because either to compile the software or to get the perfect package for your distribution. So we need to push the packaging in well used distributions and prepare static version of the most common architectures.

We also do not have a portable version (do not need install) for MacOS. But don't know if that is feasible and would be really useful.

On Windows, it works more or less. The problem are a few critical bugs and the fact that we do not have a version for x86_64.

Current bugs & features requests

• (TOP) Unable since beta version, as portable, to deal with embedded content (no relative path anymore in library.xml)
• (TOP) No portable linux version
• (TOP) Kiwix does not work with accented path on Windows
• (TOP) Xapian has difficulties with old Windows and need additional libraries from vc86redist.exe
• (MINOR) No portable Mac version
• (NORMAL) 64 bits version of Kiwix of Windows