Manual:Contents/To do

We are trying to create a complete Technical Manual for the MediaWiki Software, however there are many areas that are incomplete or missing. Please contribute information about installing, running and developing for MediaWiki software. See also public domain help pages. Currently much content is still on meta (search for "manual" at http://meta.wikimedia.org/ - more than 1,000 references as of April 12, 2007!) Please expand this manual to include all the other nitty-gritty bits of info that are useful to developers and sysadmins.

We desperately need a neat, clean, sophisticated group of accurate and unambiguous instruction manuals for each part of a MediaWiki wiki's life: ... and so on. Got ideas and experiences? HELP! Anything in red is missing! Please add your own new sections as your experience dictates. Thanks!
 * 1) preparing gear and software,
 * 2) creation from scratch,
 * 3) design criteria for your particular MediaWiki implementation (hardware, software, extensions, organizational structure and customizations),
 * 4) publicity and community building,
 * 5) ongoing maintenance and administration,
 * 6) crash recovery and prevention,
 * 7) importing (to build your initial resource) and exporting (to migrate your data and to reuse or re-purpose your data,
 * 8) turning your MediaWiki over to the next generation of WikiMasters,
 * 9) inheriting an existing Wiki from known or unknown previous WikiMasters

Here are some sections that are completely missing - please add what you can!


 * Preview/Overview of basic steps to building a MediaWiki
 * Private or networked or Internet-connected computer with Operating System
 * Web Server software - Apache, Microsoft IIs
 * Database server - MySQL
 * Management software - PHP
 * Customizations - MediaWiki and your configuration choices
 * A web browser!


 * MediaWiki Basic setup and configuration
 * Detailed step-by-step checklists
 * Manual:Installation and Manual:OS specific help were moved from Meta, but they still need cleanup.
 * Designing your organizational scheme for users, data, security, maintenance
 * Manual:Before installing should deal with this.


 * MediaWiki backup/restore and import/export
 * How to inherit a MediaWiki and re-set it up
 * Crash recovery and prevention
 * Manual:Backing up a wiki exists, Manual:Moving a wiki has some of this information too.