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FacebookInstalling Mediawiki Is Much Easier Than The Instructions Suggest — My Quick 10 Step Tutorial for Installing Mediawiki
June 14th, 2007 | Posted in Wikis 18 Comments »
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:
- The latest version of Mediawiki requires PHP5. If you don’t already have PHP5 on your server, 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.
- Download the latest version of Mediawiki. Currently the latest version is 1.15.1.
- Use a tool like 7-zip to unzip the compressed Mediawiki folder. Right-click the downloaded folder and select 7-zip > Extract. You may have to extract it a couple of times before you see the folder. Once extracted, upload the contents of the folder to a new directory on your server, probably at /wiki. For example, my practice wiki is at http://idratherbewriting.com/wiki.
- 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.
- 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 all you see is a blank page, go into the PHP5 module in your cPanel and change the PHP type to FastCGI for PHP. Alternatively, 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 .php4Save 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.
- 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. (If the localsettings.php file doesn’t appear, try re-running the install, or waiting, or refreshing folders.)
- 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.
- 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.
Tags: Dokuwiki, installation, Mediawiki, PHP5, Wikis
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[...] FreelanceSwitch: My favorite post of the week teaches us how to make lazy work for you … I’d Rather Be Writing: Tom’s got the easy-peasy (he swears!) ten-step lowdown on installing Mediawiki … [...]
[...] Installing Mediawiki [...]
Creating a MediaWiki Wiki…
I’m guessing that most of you are as ignorant of technology as I feel nowadays. Back in the DOS era, I was on the cutting edge. I could edit an autoexec.bat, config.sys, or command.com file with the best of them. Windows 3.1 kept me in the game, …
Thanks for the write up.
The time it took for me to search ‘How To…’ to the time I was able to edit my own wiki was just under 5 minutes.
Much appreciated.
I’m glad you found my instructions useful. I didn’t realize how awful the formatting was. I just edited the CSS to make it more readable.
I’m also not sure why I had info in here about transferring domains. I removed that part. Thanks for the note.
I have mediawiki installed on a password protected folder in my site. I use it every day to update notes, goals, plans, thoughts, and other personal items. I love it.
Yes! Easy-to-follow, accurate instructions! This is the best guide I found. Thanks for the write-up.
Thank you so much! Your guide is awesome and made my life easier. Why can’t others do it in plain English without filling theirs up with jargon?
Jack, I’m glad you found the short tutorial useful. Good luck with your new wiki.
[...] I have an installation tutorial for Mediawiki here. [...]
Appreciate the simplified rundown, I’m just a not-so-techy writer and want a Mediawiki to house and organize a large project I’m working on (35k words is getting a little big for a .txt document). I’m not having any luck though, I’ve uploaded the wiki to my domain, but when I try run it I get this error:
“No input file specified. HTTP/1.1 503 Server too busy Connection: close Date: Thu, 01 May 2008 21:36:29 GMT Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0 Content-Type: text/html Server Error, unable to connect to fastcgi server.”
If I try run just the wiki folder URL I’ll get
“Directory Listing Denied”
Any clues on what I’m doing wrong? It’s all 777 in my FTP application.
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Thanks so much for this! I’m pretty savvy but I don’t know a lot about SQL and I was a little confused based on the official instructions – this page got me up and running in a couple of minutes!
Easier than this.
If you use DreamHost as your hosting service, they have a “one-click install” for MediaWiki.
This is a wonderful article. Had a nice time getting SAMP configured and ready on my Solaris box, but managed to work it all out in a day. I a bookmarking this page!!
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