Kiwix: A Wiki Archiver for the End of Everything!

Michael Stipe was right - It’s the end of the world as we know it. With global warming taking place, the pandemic, the economy teetering on the edge, and the government disclosing the existence of UAPs (UFOs), there are more than enough reasons to think about what we’re going to do when things finally go dark. The internet is a web of interconnected servers spanning the globe, and all of that depends on some very flimsy hardware that is wholly dependent on the power grid, the telecommunications networks, and even the availability of water to cool server farms. What happens when it all goes away?

Well, for starters, there’s no Wikipedia, and there’s no TED. That’s a shame because those resources could really help in a pinch, right? Being able to know which plants are dangerous, which plants are edible, and which can be used to make medicine, will be important. So what is someone to do when they need the internet, but there is no internet available?

You copy it.

Kiwix can help you do that! It’s an offline reader for websites that includes popular resources such as Wikipedia, TED, stackexchange, and more. It is possible to download dumped archives of most of these sites, import them, and have a working mirror of the good stuff (assuming you’ve got solar panels and a Raspberry Pi.)

From the Kiwix site:

We can make highly compressed copies of entire websites that each fit into a single (.zim) file. Zim files are small enough that they can be stored on users’ mobile phones, computers or small, inexpensive Hotspot.

Kiwix then acts like a regular browser, except that it reads these local copies. People with no or limited internet access can enjoy the same browsing experience as anyone else.

The software as well as the content are fully open-source and free to use and share.

So sure, you can use it as a browser for yourself. But if you want to trade knowledge for a good meal, fear not! Kiwix-serve, one of the tools in the suite of utilities available with the project, can actually serve those pages over http. This will let you create an entirely self-hosted “end of the world” wiki!

The first thing that you need is a Raspberry Pi or a spare computer to act as a server. Then, go to the Kiwix site, download the software, and decompress the archive. Inside, you’ll find:

• kiwix-manage: a tool to make an XML file containing references to all of the .zim files you’ve got for your mirror.

• kiwix-read: a utility to read .zim files

• kiwix-search: a utility to search .zim files

• kiwix-serve: the server

To get started, you can get a small .zim file from the site above, place it in the directory with kiwix-serve, then issue the command to start a web server process.

./kiwix-serve aimhi_philosophy_2020-09.zim

And that’s it, really! The server will start on port 80. Navigating to your machine’s address on your local network will show you the contents of the archive on a cleanly-formatted page! From there, you can get fancy—put it behind SSL with Apache, Nginx, or Lighttp, add a DNS name, and you’re ready to trade knowledge for a ton of bottlecaps!

Later, you can download a ton of extra .zim archives and create a library with kiwix-manage:

./kiwix-manage library_zim.xml add ted_en_playlist-apocalypse-survival-guide_2021-01.zim

./kiwix-manage library_zim.xml add wiktionary_en_all_maxi_2021-10.zim

then use the library XML file you create to start the server with multiple .zim files:

./kiwix-serve --library library_zim.xml

You should see all of your archives listed on the page with neat icons and a grid arrangement. Sweet!

If you’re interested in seeing what this can do, visit The End of the World Wiki here!