I post the installation steps needed for MediaWiki in Fedora 10. If anyone knows there is a better document, please post the link.
(1) Install MediaWiki (the example given here is done by login as root and type the command in terminal mode)
# yum install mediawiki
Normally, yum would also install php-mysql, php-pgsql, php, httpd because they are dependencies.
(2) Apache (httpd) needs the file /etc/mime.types which is provided by the package mailcap. But when install httpd, yum does not know that httpd needs mailcap, so you have to install mailcap manually.
# yum install mailcap
(3) MediaWiki requires a database server. Since the database server can be MySQL or PostgreSQL, and it does not have to be on the same computer, the database server is not defined as a dependency for mediawiki.
If you want to use MySQL
# yum install mysql-server mysql
If you want to use PostgreSQL
# yum install postgresql-server postgresql
(4) Start database server (if using MySQL) and web server
# service mysql start
# service httpd start
If you want to automatically start them every time you reboot the system, type the following commands
# chkconfig mysql on
# chkconfig httpd on
(5) MediaWiki is installed in /usr/share/mediawiki with files specific to a site installed in /var/www/wiki which contains the following directories and files
config/
config/index.php
images/
index.php -> /usr/share/mediawiki/index.php
The files in /var/www/wiki is used as a template. Without making any customizations in Apache (httpd.conf), Apache can only access /var/www/html. So copy the MediaWiki template directory to /var/www/html
# cp -a /var/www/wiki /var/www/html
Now the files for your wiki is in /var/www/html/wiki and your wiki pages are stored in database server (to be installed later)
(6) The files which define the skins for the wiki (images, css, js) is installed in /usr/share/mediawiki/skins which is not accessible by web server. You have to make them accessible by one of the following ways.
If you would not make any customization to the skins, create a soft link to the skins directory
# ln -s /usr/share/mediawiki/skins /var/www/html/wiki/skins
If you would customize the skins, copy the skins directory
# cp -a /usr/share/mediawiki/skins /var/www/html/wiki
(7) Enter the following URL in your web browser (Firefox, or Konqueror, or any of your favourite)
http://localhost/wiki
(8) For first time access to MediaWiki, it would response with a page saying "Please set up the wiki first." Click on the link, which would browse to
http://localhost/wiki/config/index.php
(9) Fill in the options in the configuration page. Most of them just accept the default will be OK. Remember to choose either MySQL or PostreSQL as your database server. I suggest click on the "Use superuser account" checkbox, and enter the username of the database superuser account and password (For MySQL, the default superuser is root, for PostgreSQL, it is postgres), otherwise it may have problems in creating the database.
(10) Click the "Install MediaWiki" button at the bottom of the configuration page.
(11) If everything is OK, "MediaWiki installation successful" page is displayed.
(12) Move the config/LocalSettings.php file into the parent directory, e.g. in terminal command mode,
# mv /var/www/html/wiki/config/LocalSettings.php /var/www/html/wiki
(13) Remove the config directory for security reason
# rm -fr /var/www/html/wiki/config
(14) Type the following URL in your web browser, firefox or konquerer, or any others
http://localhost/wiki
(15) The MediaWiki main page should be displayed.
Hope this can help. Further enhancements are welcome. Where is the VOBS!
