How to install and backup mediawiki

Meidawiki is a good tool to organise the information and knowledge. I even use it to keep some notes. My first mediawiki was established like in 2012. There are some important informations in my database. Therefore I hope to keep it and run it in every Laptop. This blog keeps the steps on how to install and backup it.

intall mediawiki

I installed the mediawiki in Elementary OS (Ubuntu), so steps of installing mediawiki are like:

install dependents:

sudo apt-get install apache2 mysql-server php5 php5-mysql libapache2-mod-php5

install mediawiki:

There are two ways to do that:

The systematic way:

sudo apt-get install mediawiki (this will install a low version)

Manual:

step1: download an upgraded version:

wget https://releases.wikimedia.org/mediawiki/1.33/mediawiki-1.33.0.tar.gz

extract them and put them into /var/lib/mediawiki

step 2: Create a database ( in mysql )

1. Check and see if the database server is running; for example, run

   /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqladmin status
   

   If it is not, run mysqld_safe to start it:

   sudo /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld_safe &
   

2. Set a password for the “root” account on your database server.

   /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqladmin -u root password yourpassword
   

3. Run the MySQL command-line client:

   /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql -u root -p
   

4. Run command in the mysql command-line:

create database wikidb;
GRANT ALL ON my_wiki.* TO 'new_mysql_user'@'localhost';
grant index, create, select, insert, update, delete, alter, lock tables on wikidb.* to 'wikiuser'@'localhost' identified by 'password’;

problem? sometimes this message may show up:

connection error: Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (localhost)

In my case, I found a solvation:

sudo mysql -u root
use mysql;
update user set plugin='mysql_native_password' where User='root';
flush privileges;
quit
reboot

step3: go to 127.0.0.1/mediawiki in your browser, follow the steps.

Back up wikidb:

All information are restored in mySQL database, so backup it with command:

mysqldump -u[user] -p[password] [databasename] > [dump_name]

In my case, it goes like:

mysqldump -u root -p wikidb >wikidb.mysql

My database is in wikidb.mysql. And I do not want to do this by typing them in the terminal. In replacement, I use crontab, edit crontab:

crontab -e

with a new task:

0 12 * * 1 mysqldump -u root -p wikidb >/home/junxie/work/wikidb.mysql

This means to run backup command in the noon every Monday.

Restore a wikidb in a new computer:

If you move in to another computer, after installing the mediawiki, run the following commend to restore the backup one.

mysql -u[user] -p[password] [database_name] < [dump_name]

In my case, it is:

mysql -u root -p wikidb <wikidb.mysql

Have fun ^_^