Manual:Installing MediaWiki/en

MediaWiki installs itself using an interactive, web-based installation script. Before you can run this script, you need to do a couple of things: see prerequisites or short installation guide for experts.

MediaWiki can be difficult to install for the average computer user who does not have experience with Apache, PHP and MySQL/MariaDB. Most users who wish to use wiki software may benefit from using a free MediaWiki host or via a software bundle.

Download MediaWiki software
Download the MediaWiki tar file from the official download page. Generally, if you're using a production environment, you want to be running the latest stable release, which is MediaWiki.

Extract the MediaWiki software
The downloaded file is in  or in   file format. You need to uncompress this archive file before use. You can uncompress the file locally (and then upload via FTP to the server) or directly on your server. Uncompressing is usually done with software such as 7-Zip (free), WinZip, WinRAR or IZArc (free) on Windows. On Linux and Mac OS X, you can uncompress the file using this command:

tar -xf mediawiki-*.tar.gz

Upload files to your server
If you have not already uploaded the files to your web server, do so now.

Upload the files to your web server's web directory either by:


 * 1) directly copying the unzipped folder or
 * 2) by using an FTP client such as FileZilla (Open Source Software, Windows, OSX and Linux) or Cyberduck (Also OSS, Windows and OSX).
 * 3) by using cPanel File Manager (see below)

If your upload tool has a "change file names to lowercase" option, then you must disable this.

If you installed Apache, the correct directory is specified in your  file (it's the DocumentRoot directive, typically   or ). Note: This changed in Ubuntu 14.04 with Apache 2.4.7 where the primary configuration file for Apache server settings and directories is.

If you are using a Linux or Unix server you can instead copy the files to any directory on your server and then make a symbolic link to that folder from your web server's web directory.

Rename the uploaded folder to whatever you would like to have in the URL. If your web server is running as  for example, renaming to   directory would mean you would access your wiki at. Do not use  if you want to use it as a Short URL. (And don't set up short URLs until you have run the installation script.)

This (renamed) folder will now be referred as.

cPanel File Manager
cPanel is a popular web hosting control panel software used by many web hosts.


 * Navigate to the directory where you want your wiki folder.
 * Upload the mediawiki-1.xx.x.tar.gz file. You may need to hit "Reload" to see it.
 * Extract the mediawiki-1.xx.x.tar.gz file. Reload again.
 * Confirm that the mediawiki-1.xx.x folder is present.
 * Delete the mediawiki-1.xx.x.tar.gz file.
 * Rename the mediawiki-1.xx.x folder to w.

Create a database
If you already have a database server and know the root password for it, the MediaWiki installation script can create a new database for you. If this is the case, you can skip to the Run the installation script section below. If you don't know the root password, for example if you are on a hosted server, you will have to create a new database now. Currently, you must use SQLite, MariaDB/MySQL or PostgreSQL to store the actual contents of your wiki. If you're unsure which database to choose, use MariaDB as it is the one best supported by MediaWiki.

SQLite
SQLite is a stand-alone database library that stores the database contents in a single file. If PHP has the  module, no further setup is required.

On the installation page, you will need to choose a database name (which can be anything) and the SQLite database directory. For the database directory, the installer will attempt to use a subdirectory outside of the document root and create it if needed. If this directory is not safe (for example, web-readable), change it manually to avoid making it accessible to everyone on the web.

MariaDB/MySQL
MediaWiki will ask you for database and user name and will attempt to create them if they don't already exist. If doing so from MediaWiki is impossible, you can do this using various control panels such as PhpMyAdmin, which are often available from shared hosts, or you may be able to use ssh to login to your host and type the commands into a MySQL prompt. See the corresponding documentation. Alternatively, contact your host provider to have them create an account for you.

If your database is not running on the same server as your web server, you need to give the appropriate web server hostname &mdash; mediawiki.example.com in the example below &mdash; as follows:

PostgreSQL
If you are using PostgreSQL, you will need to either have a database and user created for you, or simply supply the name of a PostgreSQL user with "superuser" privileges to the configuration form. Often, this is the database user named postgres.

Here's one way to do most of the setup. This is for a Unix-like system. In this example, we'll create a database named wikidb, owned by a user named wikiuser. From the command-line, as the postgres user, perform the following steps.

createuser -S -D -R -P -E wikiuser (then enter the password) createdb -O wikiuser wikidb

or as superuser (default postgres) execute the following commands at the database prompt:

Beware of the list of known issues when running MediaWiki with PostgreSQL.

Run the installation script
Once all of the above steps are complete, you can complete the installation through a web browser by going to the index.php URL in your browser — check the instructions mentioned in.

The installation tool will prompt you to download the file, and to save this as.

Alternatively, you can run the command-line installer or CLI:  adding the appropriate configuration parameters.

Further steps
These are optional but make your site look so much better.



Keep up to date!
Subscribe to our release announcements mailing list.

Once installed, make sure you stay up to date with releases, and keep your server secure!

Installation assistance

 * Read the FAQ about installation and configuration
 * MediaWiki installation errors
 * Ask questions and receive help about installing MediaWiki