Help:Running MediaWiki on Slackware Linux

 

<-MediaWiki User's Guide: Running MediaWiki

Warning: no promises of security are made in this guide. It was intended to be run on an offline workstation.

System

• Slackware Linux full install: [1]
  • Apache: [2]
  • MySQL: [3]
  • MediaWiki: [4]
  • Cur dump of the database (20031231_cur_table.sql.bz2): [5]

Slackware's full installation includes Apache, MySQL, and PHP, though some administrative work is still needed to get them up and running.

Settings

For this guide, I will make the following assumptions about names, directories, and the like, but you will want to make some of them different:

• name - The wiki needs a name; this example is called vicuna.
• database - It also needs a database, which will also be called vicuna in this example.
• passwords - There are several passwords involved, most importantly the password for the wiki database, and the initial administrator account you'll create when running the configuration page.
• directory - The directory where the wiki will be installed. In this example, it's /var/wiki.

Configuration of Apache

At a minimum, the webserver must access your wiki on demand. There are better and more complex ways of setting it up, but this will suffice. In /etc/apache/httpd.conf, in the section IfModule mod_alias.c, add the following line:

Alias /wiki/ /var/wiki

Replace /var/wiki with the directory you've chosen.

Apache will not be configured to use PHP by default, so you may need to do the following.

1. Edit /etc/apache/httpd.conf by uncommenting the line #Include /etc/apache/mod_php.conf
2. Edit /etc/apache/mod_php.conf by adding .phtml to the line AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
3. If Apache isn't running, enter apachectl start, otherwise, do apachectl restart.

Configuration of MySQL

Perform the following commands as root.

1. Copy one of the MySQL configuration files in /etc to my.cnf:
   cp /etc/my-meduium.cnf /etc/my.cnf
2. Initialize the MySQL databases (only necessary once per system, but harmless):
   su mysql -c mysql_install_db
3. Start the MySQL daemon:
   mysqld_safe --user=mysql &
4. Set the root password:
   mysqladmin -u root password password

You probably want MySQL to start at system boot time. You must edit a couple of init scripts to accomplish this.

• Place the startup script:
  cp /usr/share/mysql/mysql.server /etc/rc.d/rc.mysql
• Edit /etc/rc.d/rc.M and add the following text near the end:

# Start the MySQL server
if [ -x /etc/rc.d/rc.mysql ]; then
  . /etc/rc.d/rc.mysql start
fi

• Edit /etc/rc.d/rc.K and add the following text above the "Kill all processes" section:

# Shut down the MySQL server:
if [ -x /etc/rc.d/rc.mysql ]; then
  /etc/rc.d/rc.mysql stop
fi

Configuration of MediaWiki

1. Go to the directory where you will install Mediawiki, such as /var, and unpack the package:
   cd /var
tar xzvf ~/mediawiki-1.x.x.tar.gz
2. Rename the directory to something manageable:
   mv mediawiki-1.x.x wiki
3. Make the config directory world-writable:
   chmod o+w wiki/config
4. Load the configurating page in your web browser and use it. Go to http://my.host/wiki/config/.
5. Once the configuration has completed successfully, shut off the config directory:
   chmod 700 wiki/config
6. And get your LocalSettings.php file installed:
   mv wiki/config/LocalSettings.php wiki
7. Edit LocalSettings.php as desired.

Loading the dump

1. Unzip the dump by typing: bunzip2 20031231_cur_table.sql.bz2 (this will take a while depending on the size of the dump and the speed of your workstation).
2. Import the dump in your database by starting a mysql session as above, if you have not done so, loading the wiki database (the name as you gave above), by typing: use <wiki db> and then importing the data by typing: source /path/20031231_cur_table.sql. This will also take a long time.

At this point you should have a working install with some data in it. Other things will also need to be set up (classic TODO here).

See also

• Running MediaWiki on Linux