Manual:Installation guide
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Contents
- What is MediaWiki?
- Documentation
- Customization
- Versions & Download
- Installation
- Support & Contact
- Development
All other topics
- See navigation on the left
Installation Guide | About MediaWiki
Welcome to the MediaWiki installation guide which provides instructions on how to manually install and configure MediaWiki on a web server. Note that some users may find MediaWiki software bundles and hosting services with 1-click installation and wiki farms a convenient alternative to manual installation.
The first part of this guide gives general instructions, while the last section contains a list of appendices that give more detailed installation notes for specific system configurations and other less common uses of the software.
Contents
Upgrade guide[edit | edit source]
If you are already running MediaWiki, see the Upgrade guide.
 Requirements in short |
For image thumbnailing and TeX-support, additional programs are required. (*) – MariaDB, a GPL fork of the MySQL code by Monty Widenius, the founder of MySQL, is an alternative and can also be used by MediaWiki. Debian/Ubuntu repos. |
Summarized installation guide[edit | edit source]
| Warning about webhost auto-installers |
| Programs provided by webhosts to automatically install applications such as MediaWiki can, and frequently do, screw up the process, resulting in errors and a failure to install MediaWiki (or another application for that matter). If you encounter this problem, it does not mean that you cannot install MediaWiki; all it means is that you should do it manually. This is very easy and there are benefits to doing this, including more control over where on the server and file path you want to install it, the ability to use a shared database, or the ability to control more features of the wiki during the installation. |
For experienced users, here is the quick version of the installation instructions. Most users will want to read the more detailed version, below.
- Check that your system meets the minimum requirements
- Download MediaWiki (direct link to latest version) and extract the archive to a web-accessible folder on your server.
- Point your browser to the directory where MediaWiki was extracted and follow the link to the setup screen. It should be in the form http://[domain]/[directory]/mw-config/index.php. Replace [directory] with the path to your extracted MediaWiki folder. If installed on a local machine, replace [domain] with localhost. If installed on a remote server, replace [domain] with your server's domain name (eg: www.myserver.com).
- Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the process.
These instructions are deliberately brief. There is a lot that could go wrong, so if in doubt, you are advised to read the full instructions below!
Main installation guide[edit | edit source]
- Before installation
- Read what MediaWiki is
- Check the MediaWiki feature list
- Installation requirements - Check these before going any further!
- Configuring MediaWiki
- Initial configuration (using the configuration script)
- Further configuration
- Installing extensions
Alternative to manual installation[edit | edit source]
Some users may prefer to skip manual installation by using a pre-integrated MediaWiki software appliance or hosting services with 1-click installation and wiki farms.
If you are installing only for development or testing, consider using mediawiki-vagrant. You must have (and enable) hardware virtualization. Many modern computers have this, and you can check in your BIOS.
Appendices[edit | edit source]
Advanced uses[edit | edit source]
The following pages give instructions about how to install/configure MediaWiki for other, less common purposes.
Advanced configuration[edit | edit source]
The following pages cover some of the more advanced configuration options:
Installation assistance[edit | edit source]
- FAQ: FAQ#Installation and configuration
- IRC (#mediawiki)
- mediawiki-l (Mailing List) is the high-traffic mailing list to ask for support.
- MediaWiki Users (Forum) is a user-to-user MediaWiki support forum (offline)
System-specific instructions[edit | edit source]
The following pages give more detailed installation instructions aimed at specific systems. However, by and large Manual:Installing MediaWiki is more up to date, and better written than the per system docs, and as such it is recommended you first consult the main install instructions before looking at a per system installation documents.
Notes[edit | edit source]
- MediaWiki ships with an installation script which allows web-based configuration
- MediaWiki can share the database of another web-based application, e.g. phpBB etc.
- Knowledge of PHP is required in order to customize the software
- PHP 5 support has been required since MediaWiki 1.7 – if you are using an older version of PHP and cannot upgrade then you should use MediaWiki 1.6.12 (download). Note that this version is no longer supported.
- MySQL 4 support has been required since MediaWiki 1.6 – if you are using an older version of MySQL and cannot upgrade then you should use MediaWiki 1.5.8 (download). Note that this version is no longer supported.
- MySQL 5 support is required since MediaWiki 1.19 – if you are using an older version of MySQL and cannot upgrade, you should use MediaWiki 1.18.5 (download). Note that this version is no longer supported.
- Some users find it helpful to install an additional software package such as phpMyAdmin (MySQL) or phpPgAdmin (Postgres) to help administer the database server.
