How to Install MediaWiki (Wikipedia's Wiki Software)

MediaWiki is the free software that powers Wikipedia. It's a great fit for documentation, knowledge bases and community wikis. OpenPanel installs it in one click and includes backups, cloning and one-click updates.

Requirements

OpenPanel Enterprise - the MediaWiki module must be enabled for your hosting plan.
A domain or subdomain, e.g. wiki.example.com.
A PHP version that meets the MediaWiki release's minimum - OpenPanel checks this before installing and tells you if the domain's PHP version is too old.

Install MediaWiki

Add the domain in OpenPanel → Domains (Add a new domain).
Go to OpenPanel → Websites → Install App and click Install MediaWiki.
Choose the domain, MediaWiki version (Latest), site name, and the admin username, password and email.
Start the installation.

Install MediaWiki form with the site details, domain and location, and admin credentials

OpenPanel downloads the official release, creates a MySQL/MariaDB database, runs MediaWiki's installer, and adds a cron job for MediaWiki's job queue.

Open https://wiki.example.com, or click Login as Admin on the wiki's manage page.

Common Configuration

All wiki settings live in LocalSettings.php in the wiki folder. Edit it with the File Manager.

Allow file uploads

$wgEnableUploads = true;

Uploaded files go to the images/ folder. Raise PHP's upload_max_filesize if you need larger files - see How to increase PHP limits.

Restrict who can edit

For a private or company wiki:

$wgGroupPermissions['*']['createaccount'] = false; // no public sign-ups
$wgGroupPermissions['*']['edit'] = false;          // only logged-in users edit
$wgGroupPermissions['*']['read'] = false;          // make the wiki private

Install extensions

Download an extension into extensions/ and enable it in LocalSettings.php:

wfLoadExtension( 'VisualEditor' );

Many popular extensions (VisualEditor, Cite, ParserFunctions) are already bundled with MediaWiki - just add the wfLoadExtension line.

Caching

For busy wikis, enable the Redis service and set $wgMainCacheType to use it - see Redis (use redis as the host).

Managing the Wiki

The wiki's manage page in OpenPanel → Websites → Sites has:

Login as Admin - a one-time admin login link.
Update - updates MediaWiki core and runs the database update script; LocalSettings.php and images/ are kept.
Clone - copies the wiki to another domain, for example for testing an upgrade.
Backups - on-demand backups of the database, files or both, with one-click restore.
Logs and Remove.