Install a new wiki

Legacy: This article describes a concept that has been superseded in the course of ongoing development on the Organic Design wiki. Please do not develop this any further or base work on this concept, this is only useful for a historic record of work done. You may find a link to the currently used concept or function in this article, if not you can contact the author to find out what has taken the place of this legacy item.

Install a new wiki Organic Design procedure

After a new database has been added for the wiki using the add a wiki database procedure, some files need to be added and modified.

Configuration directory

Each wiki requires a configuration directory in /var/www/wikis which contains it's LocalSettings.php file, a symlink to the MediaWiki code-base it's to use and its files as shown in the following example file structure.

/var/www/wikis/foo/
/var/www/wikis/foo/LocalSettings.php                   # Individual wiki configuration
/var/www/wikis/foo/wiki -> /var/www/mediawiki-1.13.2/  # Symbolic link to the MediaWiki code-base
/var/www/wikis/foo/files/                              # Images filesystem hash table (ensure this is writable by webserver)

LocalSettings.php and other wiki configuration files

Most of the settings required are already configured in the wikia.php script in out extensions' svn repo, but some settings such as the wiki's name, its database details and its extensions are still necessary. See our sample file LocalSettings.sample.php which covers most of the common conventions for a wiki intended for Organic Design wiki organisation use. One other related file is wikia.i18n.php which contains all the internationalised messages used by OD wiki organisational systems.

Domain configuration

Add a symlink for the domain(s) the new wiki should be accessible from. If the domain is pointed at the server using a wild-card, then no DNS configuration will be necessary, but otherwise an A-record will need to be created for the sub-domain, or a completely new domain may need to be set up, in which case see set up a new domain name.

Once the domain/sub-domain is pointing at the server, then it is routed to the correct wiki by adding a symlink in /var/www/domains which has the same name as the domain and links to the configuration directory for the new wiki in /var/www/wikis for example:

ln -s /var/www/wikis/foo /var/www/domains/foo.com

Populate wiki content

• skin
• sidebar tree
• common CSS and JS

See also

• Add a wiki database
• Set up a new domain name