I’d Rather Be Writing - Tom Johnson

If you glance at the instructions for installing Mediawiki, it looks like you have to run complicated scripts with shell access to your server and other geeky stuff. In reality, it’s about as easy to install as Dokuwiki — assuming you have a typical hosted account, such as with Blue Host or Lunar Pages. Here’s how to do it.

To install Mediawiki:

1. The latest version of Mediawiki requires PHP5, so ask your Web host to move your account to a server with PHP 5. If you have cPanel, you may have a feature that says Enable/Disable PHP5. If so, you can enable PHP5 yourself. But if you don’t see this, you may have to wait a couple of days for your account to transfer to a server with PHP5.
2. Download the latest version of Mediawiki. Currently the latest version is 1.10. It is possible to install older versions compatible with PHP4, but then you’d be missing out on the latest fixes, enhancements, and other improvements to the software.
3. Use a tool like 7-zip to unzip the compressed Mediawiki folder. Extract it and upload it to a new directory on your server, probably at /wiki. For example, the new Suncoast wiki is at http://stc-suncoast.org/wiki.
4. Within your FTP program (such as Filezilla), right-click the config folder that you uploaded into the wiki directory, select File Attributes, and then select all the check boxes (777). This makes the config folder writable so the install script can run.
5. Create a MySQL database with a username and password. This may seem hard because it’s probably not something you do regularly, but it’s really a one minute process if you have a MySQL feature in cPanel. You also need to add a user to the MySQL database that you create.

   Watch this video tutorial from LunarPages to see how this is done in cPanel—browse to Shared Hosting Tutorials > Working with cPanel > MySQL Database Management > Creating a MySQL Database. Write down the database name, the user you added, and the password.



6. Run the Mediawiki installer by simply going to http://yourdomain.com/wiki (or wherever you installed the Mediawiki files). It should automatically bring up a configuration screen that requires a handful of field inputs (including the database information from the previous step) before telling you to click an installation link. After completing the fields, click the installation link.

   Note: If you receive an error message that says, “PHP 5.0.0 or higher is required. ABORTING,” and you know your account is on a PHP 5 server, then try this. Open Notepad and paste in the following code:

   AddHandler x-httpd-php5 .php
   AddHandler x-httpd-php .php4

7. Save the file with the name .htaccess and then upload it to the same directory as your wiki folder. Refresh your browser and try step 7 again. It should fix the problem. If it doesn’t, ask your web host if they turned on the PHP5 switch.
8. After Mediawiki installs, you will be asked to move the Localsettings.php file to the parent directory (/wiki). Follow the on-screen instructions to do this. Your wiki should be installed now.
9. No doubt you’ll want to customize the logo area. Download your Localsettings.php file and use a tool like Notepad++ to add the following code (but change the path): $wgLogo = “http://stc-suncoast.org/wiki/stclogo.gif”;. The http path is the path for your logo, so you should have an image file uploaded there. Don’t forget the semicolon at the end of the statement.
10. After Mediawiki installs, it shows you links to user guides. To customize your sidebar, search for Mediawiki:Sidebar (using the search box in your new wiki site). It will show you the page you need to modify.

I just wanted to note the steps I went through because the installation instructions on Mediawiki looked intimidating when they really aren’t. To be honest, I thought I could describe the installation steps in about 10 minutes, but I now see that it was a little more complicated than I originally thought.

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Tags: Dokuwiki, installation, Mediawiki, PHP5, Wikis

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