How to Deploy MediaWiki to the Cloud
Do you want to create your own “Wikipedia”? There is no need to reinvent the wheel. If you require a platform for a high-traffic website, you should definitely consider running it with MediaWiki. This application is a server-based scalable software written in PHP, using a backend database.
Originally this free open source wiki was created for use on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation projects. Because it meets the requirements of many other projects, this PHP wiki is widely used by thousands of other public and private wikis. It is also used internally by a large number of companies like Novell and Intel, as well as by various governments and other organizations.
Here are just some benefits which you can expect with MediaWiki:
- ease-of-use and an intuitive interface
- ability to manage your data in collaboration with others
- configurability and a large number of extensions
- multilanguage support
- anti-spam features
- optimized performance and scalability
Let’s combine MediaWiki’s ease-of-use and Jelastic’s ease-of-hosting to get your high-traffic website up and running.
Create an environment
1. Go to Jelastic.com and sign up for a new account if you haven’t done so yet, or login with your Jelastic credentials by clicking the Sign In link on the page.
2. While in the Jelastic dashboard, click the Create environment button.
3. In the Environment Topology wizard, select the Apache application server, PHP v5.4 and MySQL database. Type your environment name, for example, mediawiki.
In a moment your environment with both Apache and MySQL will be created and it will appear in the environment list.
Deploy MediaWiki
1. Download the latest version of MediaWiki.
2. Upload the downloaded MediaWiki archive to the Deployment manager.
3. When the application is uploaded, click on the Deploy to … icon and choose the required environment.
4. Specify the context or just leave it empty to deploy your app to the ROOT context. Click Deploy.
Configure database
1. Click Open in browser for the MySQL node in your environment.
2. Use the MySQL credentials you received from Jelastic via email, after the environment was created and enter these in phpMyAdmin panel.
3. In the opened database admin panel, navigate to the Users settings and click Add user.
4. Complete the required form and press Add user.
Install MediaWiki
1. Go back to your Jelastic dashboard and click Open in browser for the Apache server in your environment.
2. In the opened page, click set up the wiki to initiate the installation.
3. Follow the steps for the MediaWiki installation.
Let’s set up the database connection. Specify the following parameters:
- Databasetype: MySQL
- Database host: can be found in the MySQL info (e.g. 222.222.2.22)
Database name: the one you’ve specified in the Configure database section (same as the username)
Database table prefix: can be set optionally
Database username: the one you’ve specified in the Configure database section
Database password: the one you’ve specified in the Configure database section
Press Continue to go further and complete the installation.
4. On the Complete page, the LocalSettings.php file is automatically downloaded.
5. Upload the LocalSettings.php file to your environment.
Click Config for your Apache server.
- navigate to the webroot -> ROOT folder and upload the LocalSettings.php file
6. Open your application by clicking Open in browser for your environment.
As you can see, your MediaWiki is successfully up and running in the Cloud. Congratulations! Now, you can easily start managing your very own online encyclopedia. Enjoy and feel free to leave your feedback on using MediaWiki with Jelastic!