Install MediaWiki
Contents
Set up the location
Decide on a location - subdirectory or subdomain. I like subdomains. For alstevens.org, I use wiki.alstevens.org.
For Dreamhost, use the domains >> manage domains page on the DreamHost control panel. As a standard convention, I put the webdocs in an htdocs directory, so the web panel will look like this:
Install Media Wiki
The easiest way is to use the Dreamhost one-click install on Goodies >> Once-click installs
- Select "Install new website software - Advanced Mode"
- Then use the panle to install it. Not that the subdirectory needs to be blank here, since the path for the site selected in manage domains already includes it.
Create the Data Base Manually
At the bottom of this same screen, uncheck "Create a data base for me automatically" and fill in the form. By convention, I use a db name that corresponds to the website and application. Each db gets its own user with a secure password:
Make the final configuration changes
Within a few minutes, the Dreamhost installer robot will send an email like this:
Now just go to: http://wiki.arlingtonhistorical.org/config/ And use the following settings: Site name: whatever you'd like! Contact e-mail: whatever you'd like! Language: whatever you'd like! Copyright/license metadata: whatever you'd like! Sysop account name/password: whatever you'd like! Shared memory caching: no caching Database host: mysql.alstevens.org Database name: ahswiki DB username : ahswikiuser DB password : ******** Database table prefix: we recommend "wiki_" (no quotes!) Superuser account: "-" (i.e. just leave unchecked) Click "Install!". Assuming you have no errors, the next page will say: "Move the config/LocalSettings.php file into the parent directory" DO THAT! Use FTP to connect to your site, and move LocalSettings.php out of the "config" sub-directory and into your main wiki directory. (If you want you can then remove the "config" directory entirely.) That's it, you're done! Visit your MediaWiki installation at
Follow those instructions and you'll see a screen showing the install sequence:
- MediaWiki 1.16.0 Installation
- Don't forget security updates! Keep an eye on the low-traffic release announcements mailing list (http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce).
Checking environment...
Please include all of the lines below when reporting installation problems.
- PHP 5.2.14 installed
- Found database drivers for: MySQL SQLite
- PHP server API is cgi-fcgi; using ugly URLs (index.php?title=Page_Title)
- Have XML / Latin1-UTF-8 conversion support.
- Session save path (/tmp) appears to be valid.
- PHP's memory_limit is 90M bytes.
- Couldn't find eAccelerator, APC or XCache; cannot use these for object caching.
- Found GNU diff3: /usr/bin/diff3.
- Found ImageMagick: /usr/bin/convert; image thumbnailing will be enabled if you enable uploads.
- Found GD graphics library built-in.
- Installation directory: /home/astevens/wiki.arlingtonhistorical.org/htdocs
- Script URI path:
- Installing MediaWiki with php file extensions
- Environment checked. You can install MediaWiki.
Generating configuration file...
- Database type: MySQL
- Loading class: DatabaseMysql
- Attempting to connect to database server as ahswikiuser...success.
- Connected to mysql 5.0.45-log; enabling MySQL 4.1/5.0 charset mode
- Database ahswiki exists
- Creating tables... done.
- Populating interwiki table... done.
- Initializing statistics...
- Created sysop account admin.
Creating LocalSettings.php...
Installation successful! Move the config/LocalSettings.php file to the parent directory, then follow this link to your wiki.
You should change file permissions for LocalSettings.php as required to prevent other users on the server reading passwords and altering configuration data.
Customize the settings file
- Edit LocalSettings.php
Details are here: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Configuration_settings
