---
name: "mount.wikipediafs"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "wikipediafs"
version: "0.4-7"
release: "Debian 9 (Stretch)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/mount.wikipediafs"
---

# mount.wikipediafs(1)

A program to mount WikipediaFS, a filesystem that allows one to view and edit Wikipedia articles as if they were real files.

## NAME

mount.wikipediafs — A program to mount WikipediaFS, a filesystem that allows one to view  and edit Wikipedia articles as if they were real files.

## SYNOPSIS

**mount.wikipediafs** *mountpoint*

## DESCRIPTION

This manual page documents the **mount.wikipediafs**         command and general usage of WikipediaFS.

WikipediaFS allows one to view and edit Wikipedia articles as if  they were real files. **mount.wikipediafs** mounts a WikipediaFS  filesystem.

To connect through an HTTP proxy, it is possible to use  the $http\_proxy environment variable.

## CONFIGURATION

The first time WikipediaFS is run, an XML configuration file is  generated in ~/.wikipediafs/config.xml. It is possible to edit it  later to add more Wikipedia or Mediawiki-based sites. Each site  entry can define the following elements. Elements marked with an \* are  mandatory.

- dirname\*

  Is the name of the directory through which you will access  to the site.

- host\*

  Is the host of the site. For Wikipedia, it will be  lang.wikipedia.org

- basename\*

  Is the base of urls used by the site. Most of the time, it  will be /dir/where/mediawiki/is/installed/index.php. For  Wikipedia, it will be /w/index.php.

- username and password

  Enables to edit articles with one's  login.

- httpauth\_username and httpauth\_password

  Can be used for Mediawiki sites protected  with HTTP authentication (Apache's .htaccess).

- https

  Use HTTPS instead of HTTP.

## MOUNT

**mount.wikipediafs** mountpoint/

To run mount.wikipediafs without root privileges, you may have to set  the right permissions for /usr/bin/fusermount and /dev/fuse if your  distribution has not already done it for you. For example,

\# adduser your\_username fuse

\# chmod 4750 /usr/bin/fusermount

\# chgrp fuse /dev/fuse /usr/bin/fusermount

(You may have to log out and log in again so that changes are taken  into account.)

## UNMOUNT

**fusermount** -u mountpoint/

or simply

**umount** mountpoint/

## FSTAB

Alternatively, you can mount WikipediaFS through fstab.

To do so, add this line to /etc/fstab:

none /mnt/wfs/ wikipediafs noauto,nouser

Replace noauto by auto if you want WikipediaFS to be mounted at  boot.

Replace nouser by user if you want to allow simple users to use  WikipediaFS.

A symbolic link from /usr/bin/mount.wikipediafs to  /sbin/mount.wikipediafs is needed if WikipediaFS is mounted through  fstab.

Then, traditional mount and unmount commands can be used with  WikipediaFS.

## SAMPLE USAGE

This section demonstrates possible usage of WikipediaFS via the command  line, though it is also possible to use WikipediaFS with a graphical file  explorer.

$ mount /mnt/wfs/

WikipediaFS is now mounted in /mnt/wfs/

$ cd /mnt/wfs/

We are now at the WikipediaFS root.

$ ls

mblondel.org/

This directory has been defined in the configuration file.

$ mkdir wikipedia-en/

WikipediaFS recognizes the "site-lang" pattern for the sites from the Wikimedia  Foundation.

$ ls

mblondel.org/  wikipedia-en/

$ ls wikipedia-en/

Nothing is listed because we have not used any file yet.

$ cat wikipedia-en/Japan.mw \| less

The Japan article is fetched on en.wikipedia.org and displayed. Note that  the .mw extension is required.

$ ls wikipedia-en/

Japan.mw

Japan.mw is now listed because it has been accessed once.

$ vi mblondel.org/Test.mw

An article can be edited with a text editor. Looking at the article with a web  browser, the changes have been performed correctly.

To give a summary to your changes, use \[\[Summary: a sentence summary\]\] in the  body of the article. It will be removed before the article is saved.

$ cp wikipedia-en/Japan.mw ~/Desktop/

This backups the online article to the local disk.

$ cp wikipedia-en/Japan.mw mblondel.org/

This copies the wikipedia-en article to the mblondel.org entry.

$ rm mblondel.org/Test.mw

This only removes the article from the directory, not from the site,  hopefully.

$ mkdir -p mblondel.org/Foo/Bar/

$ vi mblondel.org/Foo/Bar/Code.mw

Subpages are supported. You need to create the directories first.

## AUTHOR

This manual page was written by Mathieu Blondel .

This manual page is (c) 2006-2007 of Mathieu Blondel  and licensed under the terms of the GPLv2 or higher

## SEE ALSO

**[mount(8)](/mount/8.md)**,  **[fstab(5)](/fstab/5.md)**