MediaWiki

MediaWiki

Prerequisites

Required software as of MediaWiki 1.41.0:

Web Server

* Web server with PHP 7.4.3 or higher, plus the following extensions:
** ctype
** dom
** fileinfo
** iconv
** intl
** json
** libxml
** mbstring
** xml
** xmlreader

SQL server

* A SQL server, the following types are supported
** MariaDB 10.3 or higher
** MySQL 5.7.0 or higher
** PostgreSQL 10 or higher
** SQLite 3.8.0 or higher

Getting started

This exercise is being conducted within a VM, VMWare 16 (I prefer 16 over 17 due to some networking issues with 17)
You can get VMWare Workstation Player here:
https://customerconnect.vmware.com/downloads/details?downloadGroup=WKST-PLAYER-1625&productId=1039&rPId=98562
(Licensing allows for a free non-commercial "home use")
Within VMWare, create a Ubuntu Desktop 22.04.3 LTS  virtual machine
Then.... 
* Install Apache2   $ sudo apt-get install apache2
* Install SQLite3   $ sudo apt-get install sqlite3
* Install PHP       $ sudo apt-get install php
* Download and uncompress MediaWiki   https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download
  I downloaded "mediawiki-1.41.0.tar.gz"
  Uncompressed into user's home directory  - 30,439 items, totalling 393.0 MB
* (Optional) Create symbolic link, $ ln -s mediawiki-1.41.0.tar.gz wiki
* Using Apache2 helper scripts, enable "userdir" feature   $ sudo a2enmod userdir
* Restart Apache2: $ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart   OR  $ sudo systemctl restart apache2

At this point, a vanilla webpage, "index.html", placed in the user's public_html directory,
 should display when accessed via URL: http://localhost/~user
For example, see: https://www.server-world.info/en/note?os=Ubuntu_20.04&p=httpd&f=4
I had a permissions problem.  ~/user directory requires 751 or 755 permissions.
Same goes for public_html directory.  An Apache client needs to enter these directories.
A couple things to look at if you have problems:
$ tail /var/log/apache2/access.log    and   $ tail /var/log/apache2/error.log
See: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/85311/apache2-userdir-enabled-but-still-have-no-access

* Configuration settings list
* MediaWiki FAQ
* MediaWiki release mailing list
* Localise MediaWiki for your language

Placing Pictures

1) Upload the picture using the "Upload file" link - may need to convert picture to .jpg
  (If "Upload file" link isn't available, this is a feature that needs to be enabled first)
2) Although using "thumb" may seem like a good idea, I found that defining the picture size seems to
   provide better results.  IE  |300px

Consult the User's Guide for information on using the wiki software.

FAQ

* How do I determine my version of MediaWiki?

 Go to the "Special pages" menu and click on "Version" (Data and Tools section)
  - or just search for "version".
My MediaWiki is now version 1.41.1