Install MediaWiki as Wikipedia in Linux CentOS 7

System Requirements

MediaWiki requires PHP 5.5.9+ and either MySQL 5.0.2+, MariaDB, or one of the other three possible stores.

Setup Web Server, Database, and PHP

Step 1 : Install Apache Web Server

Update the server. Install Apache web server. Enable and start it.

[root@qemu01 ~]# yum update
[root@qemu01 ~]# yum install httpd
[root@qemu01 ~]# systemctl enable httpd.service
[root@qemu01 ~]# systemctl start httpd.service

There should be public html folder created at /var/www/html. Just test it with go to that folder.

[root@qemu01 ~]# cd /var/www/html
[root@qemu01 html]# pwd

Step 2 : Install MariaDB Database

In this step, we just install MariaDB database. Start it. And setup security.

[root@qemu01 ~]# yum install mariadb-server mariadb
[root@qemu01 ~]# systemctl enable mariadb.service
[root@qemu01 ~]# systemctl start mariadb
[root@qemu01 ~]# mysql_secure_installation

In MariaDB securing steps, we have to provide the answers below for simplicity.

Set root password? [Y/n] Y
New password: Enter your password here
Re-enter new password: repeat your password
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] Y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] Y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] Y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] Y

Step 3 : Install PHP, PHP-MySQL, PHP-MBString, and PHPMyAdmin

PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language.

[root@qemu01 ~]# yum install epel-release php php-mysql php-mbstring phpmyadmin

After that, we have to configure the phpMyAdmin configuration file.

[root@qemu01 ~]# vi /etc/httpd/conf.d/phpMyAdmin.conf

In phpMyAdmin.conf file, we need to change 127.0.0.1 to our subnet range address. In this example, we change 127.0.0.1 to 10.129.50.0/24.

...

<Directory /usr/share/phpMyAdmin/>
   AddDefaultCharset UTF-8

   <IfModule mod_authz_core.c>
     # Apache 2.4
     <RequireAny>
       Require ip 10.129.50.0/24 
       Require ip ::1
     </RequireAny>
   </IfModule>
   <IfModule !mod_authz_core.c>
     # Apache 2.2
     Order Deny,Allow
     Deny from All
     Allow from 10.129.50.0/24
     Allow from ::1
   </IfModule>
</Directory>

<Directory /usr/share/phpMyAdmin/setup/>
   <IfModule mod_authz_core.c>
     # Apache 2.4
     <RequireAny>
       Require ip 10.129.50.0/24
       Require ip ::1
     </RequireAny>
   </IfModule>
   <IfModule !mod_authz_core.c>
     # Apache 2.2
     Order Deny,Allow
     Deny from All
     Allow from 10.129.50.0/24
     Allow from ::1
   </IfModule>
</Directory>

...

Then restart the Apache web server.

[root@qemu01 ~]# systemctl restart httpd.service

Prepare MediaWiki Sources

Download MediaWiki 1.27.0

The last stable MediaWiki can be downloaded from MediaWiki.

wget https://releases.wikimedia.org/mediawiki/1.27/mediawiki-1.27.0.tar.gz

Put Media Wiki in Web Server

As example, if we're using Centos 7, the web server path is in /var/www/html/.

mv mediawiki-1.27.0.tar.gz /var/www/html/

Extract the File

Extract the tar file and rename it with your wiki name, as example named with wikipedia.

tar xvzf mediawiki-1.27.0.tar.gz

mv /var/www/html/mediawiki-1.27.0 /var/www/html/wikipedia

Run the MediaWiki Installation

Open MediaWiki index.php page at http://[web_server_address]/wikipedia/index.php and follow the installation requirement there.

Troubleshooting

Problem 1 : LocalSettings.php File Not Readable

Solution : run restorecon command into the wikipedia website folder.

[root@qemu01 ~]# restorecon -r /var/www/html/wikipedia/

Problem 2 : First Login Error (Session Hijacking Protection)

Solution : Change $wgMainCacheType from CACHE_ACCEL to CACHE_ANYTHING as suggested in LocalSettings.php file.

[root@qemu01 ~]# cd  /var/www/html/wikipedia
[root@qemu01 wikipedia]# vi LocalSettings.php

...

## Shared memory settings
#$wgMainCacheType = CACHE_ACCEL;
$wgMainCacheType = CACHE_ANYTHING;
$wgMemCachedServers = [];

...

Problem 3 : Upload File Error (LocalFileLockError)

Solution : Run setenforce 0 script and then try again.

[root@qemu01 ~]# sudo setenforce 0