Manual:Running MediaWiki on Debian or Ubuntu

This page explains how to install MediaWiki on a Debian or Ubuntu GNU/Linux server.

The instructions below refer to Debian, but unless otherwise noted also apply to Ubuntu.

This installation procedure requires knowledge of issuing commands from a terminal (e.g. installing applications) and using a text editor (e.g. graphical: gedit, kate; text: nano, emacs, vi).

When text editing is required it can be carried out on the graphical desktop by pressing Alt-F2 and typing

gksudo gedit filename

Alternatively, editing can be done from a terminal

sudo nano filename

Of course, kate could be used instead of gedit or vi instead of nano.

Ensure Debian is up-to-date
Double check that Debian is up-to-date by running:

Install LAMP Stack
Ubuntu Server Edition makes LAMP (Apache, PHP, and MySQL) available for installation during the install process.

During the installation step, make sure you choose to install a LAMP server.

Alternately, you can install all of these packages from a standard installation using these commands:

Ubuntu Xenial and Debian Stretch include PHP 7.0, and renamed many packages from "php5" to plain "php". In addition, some PHP modules are now in separate packages (xml, mbstring).

Ubuntu Trusty and Debian Jessie include PHP 5, and use "php5" in most (but not all) packages.

Optional useful packages
These packages are not necessary but may be useful, depending on the installation:

You can install any of the above with  .

Get MediaWiki

 * Download the official tarball

This can be done from a browser or by

cd Downloads wget https://releases.wikimedia.org/mediawiki//mediawiki-.tar.gz


 * extract in your Web directory

Regular setup
'' This step is not necessary if you were prompted to create a mysql root password during MySQL installation. ''

First, set up a mysql root password.

Remember not to use same password for system root and mysql root.

This will also clear your command history so that other users cannot get to your password.

mysqladmin -u root password "" history -c

Secure setup
Consider running mysql_secure_installation .


 * from main page:

Optional: Configure PHP
Edit your PHP configuration file, php.ini.

On Ubuntu Trusty and Debian Jessie, it is located at.

On Ubuntu Xenial and Debian Stretch (PHP 7), it is located at.

Maximum upload file size
Assuming that various files are going to be uploaded to the Wiki as content, the limit on the maximum size of an upload has to be adjusted.

About one-half way down is the File Uploads section.

Change:

to at least 20M.

You may have to adjust this again in the future if you want bigger uploads.

Memory limit
Some PHP scripts require a lot of memory to run.

To increase the maximum amount of memory a script can use, page down to about 21%, and change the following entry, if found, from

to

If it is already set to 128M or more, leave it as is.

Configure MediaWiki
Navigate your browser to http://localhost/mediawiki (for certain installations it may be http://localhost/mediawiki/config or http://wiki.hostname.com/config instead) and following the procedure given.

If this gives a 404 error then this technique may work:

cd /var/www/html

sudo ln -s /var/lib/mediawiki mediawiki


 * Pay close attention for "Checking environment..." in MediaWiki installation script.

This can solve a lot of problems by specifically identifying the source of any errors.

Fill out the configuration form and continue.

Under Database Config, you may change the database name and DB username to new values, but you must turn on "Use superuser account", name: debian-sys-maint

giving the mysql root password you configured earlier.

The configuration process will prompt you to download a LocalSettings.php that must be saved to the parent directory of the new wiki.

The configuration page will give the exact directory/filename that must be moved:

sudo mv ~/Downloads/LocalSettings.php /var/lib/mediawiki/

And navigate your browser to http://localhost/mediawiki (or http://server_ip_address/mediawiki or  http://server_ip_address/mediawiki/index.php) to see your new wiki.

Done!

You now have a working Wiki

General information
Mediawiki is configured by the LocalSettings.php file, usually found in.

Manual:LocalSettings.php has detailed information that may be useful.

The following are changes that appear to be universally helpful

To edit LocalSettings.php use

gksudo gedit /var/lib/mediawiki/LocalSettings.php or from a terminal

sudo nano /var/lib/mediawiki/LocalSettings.php

File uploads
See .

Changing the logo
See .

MediaWiki extensions
The current tarball for Mediawiki comes with a package of 15 or so of the most popular extensions, but there are literally hundreds more.

Instructions on how to enable extensions can be found at .

Pretty URLs
To use /wiki/* instead of /wiki/index.php/* on Debian, follow the recommended short URL guide using  as the script path instead of   and placing the rewrites in /etc/apache2/conf-enabled/mediawiki.conf.