Manual:Running MediaWiki on GNU/Linux

<-MediaWiki User's Guide: Running MediaWiki

Required software

 * Web server with PHP 4.1.2 or higher (4.3.x is preferred, see www.php.net/manual/en/install.unix.php )
 * A MySQL server. 4.0.x is preferred, but 3.2.x should work as well. (see dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/Installing.html )

These instructions assume you are using Linux and Apache, and that LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) is already set up on your machine.

Configuration

 * 1) Download MediaWiki:  or see MediaWiki from CVS
 * 2) If you downloaded a gzipped file, unzip the source files in some directory: tar zxvf mediawiki-x.y.z.tar.gz
 * 3) The new web-based install does not require root access.  If for some reason you are using the old installation you might need to use commands such as: su - and mv /path_to_mediawiki_unzip_dir/. At this point you should also read the README, RELEASE-NOTES, INSTALL inside the mediawiki-x.y.z directory. However, keep in mind that either those files or this guide may be outdated, in which case someone else would appreciate your updates to this page after you're done :)
 * 4) Move the directory into your web directory: e.g. mv mediawiki-x.y.z /usr/local/apache/htdocs/wiki or mv mediawiki-x.y.z public_html/wiki.
 * 5) To run the install script, you'll need to temporarily make the 'config' subdirectory writable by the web server. The simplest way to do this on a Unix/Linux system is to make it world-writable: chmod a+w config
 * 6) At this point you should have Apache and MySQL running (this varies between distributions and setups, see their documentations for specifics). Hop into your browser and surf into the wiki directory. It'll direct you into the config script (if it doesn't, just load up the mediawiki-1.3.0beta4/config/index.php file). Fill out the form...remember you're probably not on an encrypted connection. Gaaah! :)
 * 7) If all goes well, you should soon be told that it's set up your wiki database and written a configuration file. There should now be a 'LocalSettings.php' in the config directory; move it back up to the main wiki directory, and the wiki should now be working.
 * 8) Once the wiki is set up, you should remove the config directory, or at least make it not world-writable (though it will refuse to config again if the wiki is set up).

Running a PHP Accelerator?
In some cases, when running 1.2.4, one may encounter problems during the install. If this happens, try disabling phpa by placing php_value phpa Off in .htaccess in the root directory of your install.

Platform specific instructions

 * Running MediaWiki on Debian GNU/Linux
 * Running MediaWiki on Gentoo Linux
 * Running MediaWiki on Mandrake
 * Running MediaWiki on Slackware Linux

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