Manual:Installing MediaWiki

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 (web server software), PHP and MySQL/MariaDB (database). Using a software bundle or a hosting service might be easier. (See the .)

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


 * 1) by using an FTP client such as FileZilla (Open Source Software, Windows, OSX and Linux) or Cyberduck (Also OSS, Windows and OSX).
 * 1) by using software already provided by your hosting service, such as the cPanel File Manager

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 [ https://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/core.html#documentroot 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.

Create a database
MediaWiki's installation script will ask you for a database name and database username, so MediaWiki can store the content of the wiki.

If you already have a database server and know the password for the "root" (admin) user, skip to the Run the installation script section below.

If you don't know the password for the root user, for example if you are on a hosted server, you will have to create a new database before running MediaWiki's installation script.

Currently, you must use SQLite, MariaDB/MySQL or PostgreSQL. If you're unsure which database to choose, use MariaDB.

After finishing the database setup, continue with below.

SQLite
No further setup is required for SQLite if the  module for PHP is installed on the system.

On the SQLite installation page, 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
Create the MariaDB/MySQL database and database user. There are several ways:
 * Use a control panel software offered by your Hosting service (example: PhpMyAdmin)
 * Use ssh to log into your host and type the commands below into a MySQL prompt. See the corresponding documentation of your hosting provider.  Alternatively, contact your hosting provider to have them create an account for you.

The following commands create a database named, a user named  , and set permissions for the user on that database.

Only if your database is not running on the same server as your web server, you need to give the appropriate web server hostname ( in the example below):

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

The following commands on a Linux command-line, as the postgres user, create a database user named, and a database named   owned by the user named.

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

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
Next, complete the installation of MediaWiki by going to the URL of your MediaWiki installation in your web browser: Follow the instructions in.

Further steps
See.

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