MediaWiki Tutorial and Installation How To

The following tutorial describes how to install MediaWiki with your NEXCESS.NET web hosting account. This tutorial will help you setup and configure the MediaWiki software with our web hosting service.

MediaWiki is a free "wiki" package originally written for Wikipedia. It is now used by several other projects of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.

Make sure your host supports MediaWiki! This step only applies only if you don't have a NEXCESS.NET hosting plan - all of our shared and reseller plans support MediaWiki. If you're not a NEXCESS.NET client, then you can check the minimum requirements for MediaWiki on their website.

For the sake of this tutorial we'll assume that you own the domain 'johnsmith.com' and are setting up MediaWiki at http://johnsmith.com/mwiki/

1. Set up a database and database user for MediaWiki to use
   The first thing to do is to run through the SiteWorx MySQL tutorial and create a MySQL user and database for MediaWiki to use to store the information it needs. For the purpose of making this tutorial simple, we are going to use db_user as the MediaWiki database user and MediaWiki_db as the MediaWiki database.
2. Get the MediaWiki software on your hosting account
   Go to the MediaWiki download page and download the most recent version of the software. Unpack the MediaWiki archive, then upload the files located in the public_html folder of the archive you just uncompressed, to the remote directory where you wish to install MediaWiki. For this tutorial, we will install MediaWiki in the the directory named mwiki. Then you need to change some directory and file permissions. Using your FTP client to change the permissions of the Config directory to "777".
3. Use the MediaWiki online configuration
   Open a new browser window and navigate to http://johnsmith.com/mwiki (in our example). You should see a MediaWiki page. Click the "Please set up the wiki first." link to start the online installation script.
   
   After uploading the software, you'll need to start the online installation script
   The installation script will now check all the MediaWiki files and their permissions. If everything is good to go scroll down and fill out the Site Configuration, E-mail configuration, and MySQL configuration sections. If you Don't have a reason to change a setting, just keep it default. The installation script will now confirm that MediaWiki has been installed successfully. Before you proceed further you need to move the config/LocalSettings.php file to its parent directory. Do this using your FTP program, then point your browser to http://johnsmith.com/mwiki/index.php

Congratulations! You have successfully installed MediaWiki, If any-part of this tutorial is unclear or you need further help, don't hesitate to contact our support team.

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