MediaWiki — Installing and more

MediaWiki is free, open-source software you can use to create wiki content, such as Wikipedia. The application is ideal for creating knowledge base pages similar to an encyclopedia.

For more information, visit MediaWiki's official site:

• MediaWiki.org.

MediaWiki can be manually installed on DreamHost servers.

1. Download MediaWiki from its website at:
   • MediaWiki
2. Create a database that will be used by MediaWiki. View the following article for further information:
   • Creating a database
3. Set your domain to use PHP 8.1 or higher. View the following articles for further information:
   • Change the PHP version of a site
   • MediaWiki PHP Compatibility

You can find detailed instructions on manually installing MediaWiki in the following article:

• MediaWiki Manual Installation Guide

1. Upload the MediaWiki file that you downloaded to your web server via FTP.
2. Log into your server via SSH, then decompress the file on the server.
3. Confirm that the MediaWiki files are in your domain’s web directory. You may need to copy them from a newly-created mediawiki-x.xx.x directory to the root directory.
4. Point your browser to mw-config/index.php in your extracted MediaWiki files, which opens the setup screen. For example:
   • http://example.com/mw-config/index.php
5. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the process.
   Once the installation process completes, a LocalSettings.php file is downloaded in your browser.
6. Upload the LocalSettings.php file to your MediaWiki install folder on the webserver via FTP.

Extensions

MediaWiki offers many different types of extensions that you can use to add further functionality and customization to your site. See the following article for further details:

• MediaWiki Extensions

Google Analytics

You can also add Google Analytics to your MediaWiki installation if you wish. See the following article for detailed instructions:

• Google Analytics integration

Thumbnail problems

MediaWiki can occasionally have problems generating image thumbnails, such as returning corrupted images or the error message "Error creating thumbnail". A common cause of this is not enough memory.

If you upload a large image and see "Error creating thumbnail" where a thumbnail should be, try adding the following to your LocalSettings.php file in your site’s primary directory:

$wgMaxShellMemory = 524288;

SVG images

For best results in generating thumbnails of SVG images, you may wish to install librsvg.

Domain spoofing

Add the following to your LocalSettings.php file:

$wgUserEmailUseReplyTo = true;

This spoofs the domain so that the sending user's email is in a Reply-To header instead of the From header. Otherwise, the email that users try to send each other through Special:EmailUser on your wiki cannot be delivered.

Notifications

Given the SMTP quota, you need to be careful if you enable $wgEnotifWatchlist.

If a page is 'watchlisted' by 100 users who have that user preference enabled, then a change to that page uses up your quota for an hour, if you are on Shared Hosting.

Blocking MediaWiki spam

Combating SPAM

Provides steps you can take to combat SPAM on your website.

MediaWiki Wiki Spam

Description of what wiki spam is, and instructions on how any user can help tackle the wiki-spam problem (not just administrators). Not all of which is obvious, so it's worthwhile for administrators to read through this too, as you might wish to refer your wiki users to this.

CAPTCHA

Enabling a Captcha on any form helps to reduce spam.

Restrict account creation

By default, anyone can create an account on your wiki. However, you can restrict who has the ability to create accounts.

User rights

You also have control over user rights. You can disable non-user edits with this feature.

Maintenance scripts

In the MediaWiki root install, there is a subdirectory named /maintenance which includes various scripts you can run on your MediaWiki installation. In order to run the PHP scripts, you must create a Shell (SSH) user on your domain.

In order to run the scripts, you must enter php before the filename. For example, run the following command if you wish to run the script eval.php in the maintenance directory:

[server]$ php eval.php

To learn more about the individual scripts, see the following article:

• Maintenance scripts

Caching

Caching your site can improve performance. There are several ways to cache your data using MediaWiki. See the following articles for further information:

• MediaWiki Cache
• File cache

Enabling uploads

See the following guide for instructions on how to enable file uploads:

• Configuring file uploads

Backing up

See the following guide for instructions on how to back up your data:

• Backing up MediaWiki

Also, see the following DreamHost article for further instructions:

• Backup

Passwords and HTTPS

MediaWiki uses a form on an HTTP web page to take your password. This means that your password transmits over the network in clear text. To use HTTPS, you must add an SSL certificate.

LocalSettings.php permissions

The LocalSettings.php file stores your database login information in it, including the database username and password. After you move the LocalSettings.php file to your root directory, you can review its permissions.

You should update the permissions on that file to 640 or 600. This can be done by running the following command:

[server]$ chmod 640 LocalSettings.php

This makes the file only writeable for the owner while the group can still read it. However, the most secure option is to mark the file as only readable/writable by the owner:

[server]$ chmod 600 LocalSettings.php

This way, your MySQL password on this file is safe from viewing from other users on the same server. See the following article for further details on permissions:

• Unix File Permissions

Moving database credentials to another file

Another good security practice is to set up a separate PHP file stored in your user's directory. This file stores your credentials and instead passes them as variables. The following setup describes how to link your LocalSettings.php file to this new file:

1. In your user's directory (not the domain's directory), create a new directory called "external_includes".
2. In this new folder, create a file called database_info.php.

   The full path to this new file is:

   /home/username/external_includes/database_info.php

   Make sure to change username to your Shell user. The file includes the following (fill in your true values within the quotes):

   <?php
    $database_server = "mysql.example.com"; 
    $database_name   = "databasename"; 
    $database_user   = "username";
    $database_pw     = "password";
    ?>
   

3. Remove the current database credentials in your LocalSettings.php file.
4. Replace those lines with the following:

   # enhanced DB security
    require_once ("/home/username/external_includes/database_info.php");
    
    $wgDBserver     = $database_server;
    $wgDBname       = $database_name;
    $wgDBuser       = $database_user;
    $wgDBpassword   = $database_pw;
    
    # DB variables not security related - leave these alone from how when you set up your wiki
    $wgDBprefix     = "wiki_";
    $wgDBtype       = "mysql";
   

With this setup, your credentials in the LocalSettings file are now safely hidden.

You can select which MediaWiki license you wish to use. See the following article for more details:

• GFDL versus CC

Always make sure to first backup your database and website files before making any adjustments. This way, if something were to error you could quickly replace your files. View the following article for details:

• Back up an account in the panel

View the following guide at mediawiki.org for upgrade instructions:

• Upgrading

[server]$ php /maintenance/update.php

[server]$ /usr/local/php81/bin/php maintenance/update.php

Advanced settings and troubleshooting

## The protocol and server name to use in fully-qualified URLs
$wgServer = "https://www.example.com";

See also