Re: Media Wiki 1.7 - Set-up / Install Help

[Ken Irving <fnkci@uaf.edu>]

On Mon, Jul 02, 2007 at 09:19:15AM +0100, Nick Adie wrote:
> Hi
>  
> I have installed MediaWiki 1.7 from the archive.
>  
> The read me file is very confusing as it talks about a file that does not exist and a symbolic link
> that appears to have no relevence.
>  
> Has anyone experience of the installation/set-up of MediaWiki, and if so could I have a few
> pointers please.

I installed MediaWiki last week on a stable/etch system, and didn't seem
to have those problems.  I did have some trouble with apache v1.3, ended up 
removing it and installing apache v2; I'm not certain now that that was 
really related to MediaWiki, though.  My main confusion was in getting mysql
installed and (minimally) configured, but once I set the mysql root password
-- and gave it to the mediawiki installer -- the mediawiki installation 
completed without more headaches.

There's a note to the effect that (for some reason...) mediawiki has to 
install under /var/lib/mediawiki1.7/, and that's where the wiki repository is.

There's a config/ directory in the repository, and that's where the installation
web page sits; once the installation is done that directory can be deleted.

I was a bit taken aback by a particular sentence in the install page, related
to the mysql configuration:

    This account will not be created if it pre-exists. If this is the
    case, ensure that it has SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE permissions
    on the MediaWiki database.

"Pre-exists"?  Is that different from "exists"?  I think the "pre-" could 
be omitted for the intended purpose.  In any case, this refers to having 
the mediawiki installer set up the database, for which it needs the db's root
password; if so inclined & able, you could "pre-" set this up and so not
need to hand over that root password.

Maybe the confusion is here:

    To complete the installation, please do the following:

    1. Move /var/lib/mediawiki1.7/config/LocalSettings.php to
       /var/lib/mediawiki1.7/LocalSettings.php for normal install,
       root of your install for multisite, with rights 640

There's presumably somem reason this isn't done automatically by the 
installer, but here you're just relocating the setup script generated
by the installer.  Somewhere else there's a suggestion to create a 
symlink to this setup script into /etc/mediawiki1.7/; this just puts
the script into the more conventional /etc/ tree, which makes sense
-- not sure why this isn't done automatically, but maybe it has to do
with single- or multi-wiki sites...

Hope this helps...

Ken

-- 
Ken Irving, fnkci@uaf.edu