Manual:Wiki on a stick

By a "stick" we mean a USB stick, otherwise known as a USB key, flashdrive, keydrive, thumbdrive, or pendrive (en:Keydrive) However the instructions will apply to other removable storage media (memory card, PCMCIA/PC Card/CardBus disk, LS-120 SuperDisk, or other portable media).

Why put a wiki on a stick?
Having a personal wiki as a wiki on a stick is useful for demonstrations, personal knowledge management, sophisticated note-taking, or super-fast installations using a simple copy.

Considerations
Always stop the servers and then use the system tray "unplug/eject" icon to stop the media before removing it.

Take regular backups if you are putting a lot of effort into wiki content, or software configuration/customisation. Remember that a USB key is an easy thing to lose.

Security
If you lose your USB key, anyone finding it will have access to the information in your wiki. Note that conventional web security measures as described on Manual:Preventing access, do not help (much) in this situation, since they will have direct access to the database server (it's on the USB key!). So avoid placing sensitive/confidential information in your wiki pages. Or alternatively...

You may want to use encryption software such as TrueCrypt, to protect your data. This requires you to mount a drive prior to server start up, and dismount the drive after server shut down each time.

On Windows

 * Manual:Installation on Uniform Server
 * Using XAMPP Portable Light: Manual:Installing MediaWiki on XAMPP and Manual:Streamlined Windows Install Guide