Manual:Config script

After downloading and extracting MediaWiki on your web server, complete the basic setup by running the configuration script. This script allows you to tell MediaWiki the information it needs in order to get the wiki up and running.

Opening the MediaWiki installation form
In the following examples, it is assumed that your website is located at which is physically located on your server at. You will need to adjust the examples to use the appropriate locations for your situation.


 * 1) Open a web browser and browse to the website address or path that you configured for MediaWiki in the web server software.


 * 1) You will see the version of MediaWiki which you extracted and a link to "Please set up the wiki first."  Click on the link to begin the configuration script.  For reference (in case you want to go there directly), this is located in MediaWiki's  directory (so using the example above you would go to  ).


 * 1) After selecting the language, the configuration script performs some environmental checks.
 * 1) If there are problems, refer to  for potential error messages and how to solve them.
 * 1) If there are no problems, the page will display "The environment has been checked. You can install MediaWiki."
 * 1) Follow the instructions on the next pages to set up database access and to set further settings.

Using the config script
Follow the instructions on the form to fill in the required entries (refer to the following table if you're uncertain what to enter) and after that click on the "Install MediaWiki!" button. The script will now populate the database and write a configuration file.

After the setup script has finished running successfully, a file called is created in the mw-config (config for older versions) directory. This file contains all the information needed by MediaWiki to run. Since it stores the specified database user's password in plain text, it is strongly suggested that you create a wiki specific database account (i.e. not root). (see Database username in the table below)


 * 1) Move this file to the main wiki directory (if you installed MediaWiki to  , move it there).


 * 1) Set stringent permissions on the   file.


 * 1) * Set chmod 600 and chown (Owner read and write, no other permissions).

Once you have done the above, your wiki should be ready to use. Browse to the address you installed it to (in our example http://www.example.com/w/index.php ) and start editing!

Installation errors
See Manual:Common errors and symptoms.

Configuration errors
See Manual:Common errors and symptoms.

Advanced configuration

 * - to enable image/files upload.


 * See for links to more advanced configuration.