Install Mediawiki

Setting up your own Mediawiki.

Dependencies

Mediawiki requires 3 things to be installed:

• PHP
• webserver (like nginx or apache)
• database (MariaDB, MySQL, SQLite or PostgreSQL)

Check the Mediawiki download page to see which exact versions you need: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download#System_Requirements

Install a database

For this example we will use MariaDB.

$ sudo apt install mariadb-server

Install a webserver

For this example we will use nginx.

$ sudo apt install nginx

Install PHP

Install PHP + the fpm extension: $ sudo apt install php php-common php-fpm

Configure your webserver to work with the fpm extension.

For example, when you work with nginx, edit the default config file with:

$ sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default.conf

and add the following snippet:

Note: change the version number of php to your installed version!

location ~ \.php$ {
    include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
    fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.3-fpm.sock;
}

Download Mediawiki

Navigate to the folder where you want to install Mediawiki.

In this example we will install it at /var/www/wiki/:

cd /var/www/wiki/

Download the latest version of Mediawiki and unzip the tar file.

You can copy the link from the Mediawiki download page: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download

wget https://releases.wikimedia.org/mediawiki/1.38/mediawiki-1.38.4.tar.gz

tar xf mediawiki-1.38.4.tar.gz

Rename the wiki folder something short, like "wiki".

mv mediawiki-1.35.1 wiki

Configure the URL

To connect the folder /var/www/wiki/ to an url like https://hub.xpub.nl/soupboat/wiki/ we need to edit the configuration file of the webserver.

$ sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enables/default.conf

Add the following lines:

location /wiki {
    alias /var/www/wiki/;
    index index.php;
}

See if it works: https://hub.xpub.nl/soupboat/wiki/

Database

By default you can log in to MariaDB with the root user and the root password.

However, it's a *good idea* to create a dedicated database + database user for your wiki. In this way you can easily back it up (and eventually restore it) with a simple mysqldump command. Also, it helps to keep different projects separate from each other. See the Mysql page on how to do this. Once you do this add the database name, user name, and password to the Mediawiki setup page when requested.

We will now make a dedicated database for your wiki.

First log in into MariaDB as root:

$ sudo mysql -u root -p

Create a new database:

(Note: replace "<NAMEOFYOURWIKI>" with the name of your wiki, for example: mywiki.)

 CREATE DATABASE <NAMEOFYOURWIKI>;

Create a dedicated user for this database and assign a password:

(Note: replace "<USERNAME>" and "<SOMEPASSWORD>" with something else.)

 CREATE USER '<USERNAME>'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY '<SOMEPASSWORD>';

Give this user the rights to edit the database:

 GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON <USERNAME>.* TO '<USERNAME>'@'localhost'; 

 FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Exit MariaDB:

 quit

Uploads

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Configuring_file_uploads