MediaWiki is the engine that is used for Wikipedia, but you can also use it to set up your own wiki server with information of your own. See MediaWiki for more information.

Quick shortcut

If you would rather not setup MediaWiki by hand, then one of the easiest ways to get up and running with MediaWiki is the TurnKey MediaWiki installable live CD appliance, which is based on Ubuntu 8.04.1 (Hardy).

Install

To install on your Ubuntu (or Kubuntu, etc) server (with [[ApacheMySQLPHP|Apache and MySQL] already installed):

 sudo apt-get install mediawiki imagemagick mediawiki-math mysql-server

To enable MediaWiki edit the following file and remove the '#' from the third line so that it reads 'Alias /mediawiki /var/lib/mediawiki':

sudo gedit /etc/apache2/conf.d/mediawiki.conf

Then restart apache:

 sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

The next step is to visit the website. Since you will be entering passwords, you don't want to make an unsecured connection. Either set up a ssl server] ( see forum/server/apache2/SSL) and connect with https://your.site.net/mediawiki, or visit from the server itself (using elinks or lynx, two excellent text-based web browsers):

 elinks localhost/mediawiki

fill out the forms, noting that the final form is NOT your root or user password, but the password for the root mysql account (blank by default)

Lastly, move the config files as requested to prevent anyone else from changing these settings:

NOTE: Check the output in your web browser if it's instructions differ from below follow them.

 sudo mv /var/lib/mediawiki/config/LocalSettings.php /etc/mediawiki/LocalSettings.php
 sudo chmod 600 /etc/mediawiki/LocalSettings.php
 sudo rm -Rf /var/lib/mediawiki/config

You are done! you should see a wiki page at: http://your.site.net/mediawiki

Customize

The Apache2 config files reside at /etc/apache2/conf.d/mediawiki.conf

You might want to customize the look of your wiki.

To change the icon make a 135x135 pixel logo in PNG format and move it to the right place:

 sudo cp my_new_logo.png /var/lib/mediawiki/skins/common/images/wiki.png

To get rid of the Mac-like sunburst in the background, edit /var/lib/mediawiki/skins/monobook/main.css and change:

• background: #f9f9f9 url(headbg.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat;

to

• background: #f9f9f9;

It is possible to run multiple parallel instances on Mediawiki on a single server: * http://www.jirp.nl/2008/04/11/mediawiki-farm-multiple-wiki/