Public Wiki Server

Overview

This project serves a complete, compressed Wikipedia mirror at wiki.tyfsadik.org using Kiwix. Kiwix serves content from ZIM files — a custom compressed archive format designed for offline encyclopedias. A single Wikipedia ZIM file contains the full text and images of the English Wikipedia (~90 GB) in a format that Kiwix can serve article-by-article with full-text search, without unpacking the archive.

The primary purpose is to provide Wikipedia access to users in countries where the site is restricted or intermittently blocked. The Kiwix server requires no JavaScript from external sources, no CDN dependencies, and makes no outbound network requests during operation — every response is served entirely from the local ZIM file. The stack is intentionally minimal: a single kiwix-serve process behind an Nginx reverse proxy with Let's Encrypt SSL. No database, no dynamic backend, no user tracking.

Architecture

Tech Stack

• Kiwix / kiwix-serve — ZIM file HTTP server with full-text search
• ZIM format — compressed archive for offline Wikipedia content
• Nginx — reverse proxy, SSL termination, access logging
• Let's Encrypt / Certbot — TLS certificate for wiki.tyfsadik.org
• systemd — service unit for kiwix-serve auto-start and restart
• Linux (Debian) — host operating system
• aria2c — resumable multi-connection download for the 90 GB ZIM file

Build Process

apt install kiwix-tools -y

# Verify installation
kiwix-serve --version

# If package version is too old, use static binary:
wget https://download.kiwix.org/release/kiwix-tools/kiwix-tools_linux-x86_64.tar.gz
tar xf kiwix-tools_linux-x86_64.tar.gz
mv kiwix-tools_linux-x86_64/kiwix-serve /usr/local/bin/
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/kiwix-serve

apt install aria2 -y

mkdir -p /var/lib/kiwix

# Download with aria2c: 4 connections, resumable
aria2c -x 4 -c -d /var/lib/kiwix \
  https://download.kiwix.org/zim/wikipedia/wikipedia_en_all_maxi_2024-12.zim

# Verify file integrity
ls -lh /var/lib/kiwix/wikipedia_en_all_maxi_2024-12.zim

# Create Kiwix library
kiwix-manage /var/lib/kiwix/library.xml add \
  /var/lib/kiwix/wikipedia_en_all_maxi_2024-12.zim

cat /var/lib/kiwix/library.xml

# /etc/systemd/system/kiwix-serve.service
[Unit]
Description=Kiwix ZIM HTTP Server
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=www-data
Group=www-data
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/kiwix-serve \
    --library /var/lib/kiwix/library.xml \
    --port 8080 \
    --address 127.0.0.1 \
    --threads 4
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5
StandardOutput=journal
StandardError=journal

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

# Enable and start
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable kiwix-serve
systemctl start kiwix-serve
systemctl status kiwix-serve

# /etc/nginx/sites-available/wiki.tyfsadik.org
server {
    listen 80;
    server_name wiki.tyfsadik.org;
    return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name wiki.tyfsadik.org;

    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/wiki.tyfsadik.org/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/wiki.tyfsadik.org/privkey.pem;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_read_timeout 60s;
    }
}

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/wiki.tyfsadik.org /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
nginx -t && systemctl reload nginx

apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx -y

certbot --nginx -d wiki.tyfsadik.org \
  --agree-tos --email [email protected]

# Confirm HTTPS is serving correctly
curl -IL https://wiki.tyfsadik.org
# Expected: HTTP/2 200

# Verify the cert details
certbot certificates

# Test direct access to kiwix-serve
curl http://127.0.0.1:8080/

# Test article access (URL is ZIM-internal path)
curl http://127.0.0.1:8080/wikipedia_en_all_maxi_2024-12/A/Python_(programming_language) \
  | grep "