jn64 / gollum

Guide to using Gollum wiki with Podman/systemd

This is a guide to using Gollum (Git-powered wiki with browser frontend) to run a local wiki with certain requirements:

• Use latest stable version of Gollum (5.3.2 as of this writing)
  • in a container
  • with Podman, not Docker
  • in rootless mode
  • on a SELinux-enabled distro (Fedora 38)
  • via a systemd user service
• Use a CommonMark-compliant parser (commonmarker 0.23.9) instead of the default kramdown
  • Simple change, see https://github.com/jn64/gollum/commit/cc8ee236d862ab8bea0e2b53d5a704fdb43b202e
• Store Gollum config in the same place as wiki contents

Instructions

We will use this branch as the basis of a new wiki, with some example config included.

1. Clone this branch to ~/wiki. This will be your wiki.

   git clone -b example --depth 1 https://github.com/jn64/gollum.git ~/wiki

2. Reset the git history (you don't need your wiki to be linked to this repo):

   cd ~/wiki
   rm -rf ~/wiki/.git
   git init -b main
   git add -A
   git commit -m init

3. Build custom Gollum image that includes commonmarker instead of kramdown:

   podman build -t gollum:v5.3.2-commonmark https://github.com/jn64/gollum.git#v5.3.2-commonmark

   The resulting image is localhost/gollum:v5.3.2-commonmark (check podman images).

4. Create a container with this custom image:

   podman run --name gollum -d --rm --security-opt label=disable -v "${HOME}/wiki":/wiki -v "${HOME}/wiki/.gollum":/etc/gollum -p 4567:4567 localhost/gollum:v5.3.2-commonmark --config /etc/gollum/config.rb

   Test it by opening http://localhost:4567 in your browser. Make sure it works (edit, create new page, etc).

5. Generate systemd service from the running container's configuration:

   podman generate systemd -n --new gollum | sed -E -e '/^(Wants|After)=network-online.target$/ d' > ~/wiki/.gollum/container-gollum.service

   (The sed removes an unnecessary dependency on network-online.target)

6. Stop the container:

   podman container stop gollum

7. Install and enable the user service:

   systemctl --user enable --now ~/wiki/.gollum/container-gollum.service

Done. Now the Gollum container will run automatically on your user login.

For convenience, pin or bookmark http://localhost:4567 in your browser.

Configuration

See .gollum/config.rb

References

• https://github.com/gollum/gollum/wiki/Gollum-via-Docker
• https://github.com/gollum/gollum#configuration
• https://github.com/gjtorikian/commonmarker/blob/42cfc90251353f9fceda91b884d0ded8d3da0bcf/README.md#options