Manual:Running MediaWiki on Debian or Ubuntu
 | It has been suggested that this page or section be merged with Manual:Installing MediaWiki. (Discuss) |
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 and Raspbian.
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.
Step-By-Step[edit]
Ensure Debian is up-to-date[edit]
Double check that Debian is up-to-date by running:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
Install LAMP Stack[edit]
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:
Note: Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS (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).
sudo apt-get install apache2 mysql-server php php-mysql libapache2-mod-php php-xml php-mbstring
Note: Ubuntu Trusty, Debian Jessie and Raspbian (Jessie) include PHP 5, and use "php5" in most (but not all) packages.
sudo apt-get install apache2 mysql-server php5 php5-mysql libapache2-mod-php5
Optional useful packages[edit]
These packages are not necessary but may be useful, depending on the installation:
| Name | Package | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Alternative PHP Cache | php-apcu or php5-apcu | Modern MediaWiki versions will automatically take advantage of this being installed for improved performance. |
| PHP Unicode normalization | php-intl or php5-intl | MediaWiki will fallback to a slower PHP implementation if not available. |
| ImageMagick | imagemagick | Image thumbnailing. |
| Inkscape | inkscape | Alternative means of SVG thumbnailing, than ImageMagick. Sometimes it will render SVGs better if originally created in Inkscape. |
| PHP GD library | php-gd or php5-gd | Alternative to ImageMagick for image thumbnailing. |
| PHP command-line | php-cli or php5-cli | Ability to run PHP commands from the command line, which is useful for debugging and running maintenance scripts. |
You can install any of the above with sudo apt-get install packagename.
Get MediaWiki[edit]
- Download the official tarball
This can be done from a browser or by
cd Downloads
wget https://releases.wikimedia.org/mediawiki/1.30/mediawiki-1.30.0.tar.gz
- extract in your Web directory
tar -xvzf /pathtofile/mediawiki-*.tar.gz
sudo mkdir /var/lib/mediawiki
sudo mv mediawiki-*/* /var/lib/mediawiki
Configure MySQL[edit]
Regular setup[edit]
Note: 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. Make sure that you do the following command after a space so that bash (the command-line shell) will not add it to your command history.
mysqladmin -u root password "enter the new password here"
 Warning: | Remember this user (root) and password because you will need them when you configure MediaWiki. |
Secure setup[edit]
Consider running mysql_secure_installation .
- from main page:
This program enables you to improve the security of your MySQL installation in the following ways:
mysql_secure_installation |
Optional: Configure PHP[edit]
Edit your PHP configuration file, php.ini.
On Ubuntu Trusty and Debian Jessie, it is located at /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini.
On Ubuntu Xenial and Debian Stretch (PHP 7), it is located at /etc/php/7.0/apache2/php.ini.
Maximum upload file size[edit]
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:
upload_max_filesize = 2M
to at least 20M. You may have to adjust this again in the future if you want bigger uploads.
Memory limit[edit]
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
memory_limit = 8M
to
memory_limit = 128M
If it is already set to 128M or more, leave it as is.
Configure MediaWiki[edit]
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.
It may complain that php extensions like mbstring and xml are missing even you have installed them. Please manually activate them by using:
sudo phpenmod mbstring sudo phpenmod xml sudo systemctl restart apache2.service
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
Additional wiki configuration[edit]
General information[edit]
Mediawiki is configured by the LocalSettings.php file, usually found in /var/lib/mediawiki.
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[edit]
See Manual:Configuring file uploads.
Changing the logo[edit]
See Manual:$wgLogo.
MediaWiki extensions[edit]
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 Manual:Extensions#Installing an extension.
Pretty URLs[edit]
To use /wiki/* instead of /wiki/index.php/* on Debian, follow the recommended short URL guide using '/mediawiki' as the script path instead of '/w' and placing the rewrites in /etc/apache2/conf-enabled/mediawiki.conf.
See also[edit]
- Canonical maintains a MediaWiki page with more information
- Debian MediaWiki page
- Ubuntuguide.org provides detailed instructions for setting up MediaWiki on Ubuntu and Kubuntu, including multiple wikis and nested subwikis.
- Start to end Mediawiki Setup Guide at ofswiki.org, closely referencing official docs, support for multiple distros including Debian/Ubuntu, automation and a minimal style
