This page provides a step-by-step instruction how to install a basic version of Wikibase. It just explains the minimal configuration needed for Wikibase. If you're interested in a more advanced configuration, please refer to the advanced configuration guide.

Prerequisites

MediaWiki

Technically, Wikibase is an extension (actually two extensions) to MediaWiki, so you need to set up MediaWiki first.

Warning:

Please be aware that Wikibase is currently not maintaining compatibility with older versions of MediaWiki! A recent version of Wikibase will most likely not work with an older version of MediaWiki. Vice versa an old version of Wikibase may not work with a recent MediaWiki version. Either use the most recent versions of MediaWiki and Wikibase or make sure you download the appropriate branch of Wikibase that matches your version of MediaWiki!

Composer

The easiest way to install all all dependencies of Wikibase is using Composer. Here you can find installation instructions for Composer.

Installation

A basic installation of Wikibase is pretty much straight forward and basically consists of 4 steps:

getting Wikibase
fetching dependencies
modifying LocalSettings.php
running some maintenance scripts.

The following guide will lead you through these steps.

Meet the prerequisites

Make sure you've set up MediaWiki and installed Composer.

Get Wikibase

Download Wikibase into the extensions folder of your MediaWiki installation. There are several ways to download Wikibase.

Download from Git

For getting the latest version of Wikibase, do:

cd extensions
git clone https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/mediawiki/extensions/Wikibase.git

For getting a specific version of Wikibase you have to specify the branch you want to download:

cd extensions
git clone -b REL1_29 https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/mediawiki/extensions/Wikibase.git

Download archive

Instead of using Git you can alternatively download an archive with the latest version of Wikibase or choose to download a specific version of Wikibase.
Make sure you extract the archive into a new folder inside the extensions folder of your MediaWiki installation.

Fetch all dependencies

cd into Wikibase inside the extensions folder of your MediaWiki installation:

cd Wikibase

If you've set up Composer correctly, you should be able to fetch all dependencies by running

composer install

or

php composer.phar install

depending on how Composer was installed on your machine.

Adjust your LocalSettings.php

Add the following lines to LocalSettings.php of your MediaWiki installation. You have three options, depending on whether you want to enable Wikibase Repository, Wikibase Client or both of them.

Enable Wikibase Repository only

$wgEnableWikibaseRepo = true;
$wgEnableWikibaseClient = false;
require_once "$IP/extensions/Wikibase/repo/Wikibase.php";
require_once "$IP/extensions/Wikibase/repo/ExampleSettings.php";

Enable Wikibase Client only

$wgEnableWikibaseRepo = false;
$wgEnableWikibaseClient = true;
require_once "$IP/extensions/Wikibase/client/WikibaseClient.php";
require_once "$IP/extensions/Wikibase/client/ExampleSettings.php";

Enable Wikibase Repository and Wikibase Client

$wgEnableWikibaseRepo = true;
$wgEnableWikibaseClient = true;
require_once "$IP/extensions/Wikibase/repo/Wikibase.php";
require_once "$IP/extensions/Wikibase/repo/ExampleSettings.php";
require_once "$IP/extensions/Wikibase/client/WikibaseClient.php";
require_once "$IP/extensions/Wikibase/client/ExampleSettings.php";

Run the setup scripts

Finally, you have to run some maintenance scripts.

For Wikibase Repository and Wikibase Client

Run the database update script of your MediaWiki installation:

php maintenance/update.php

Run the script that populates the sites table:

cd extensions/Wikibase
php lib/maintenance/populateSitesTable.php

For Wikibase Client only

If you want to run a Wikibase Client, you'll also need to run the script that populates the interwiki table:

cd extensions/Wikibase
php client/maintenance/populateInterwiki.php

Verify your installation

Wikibase Repository

To verify your Wikibase Repository installation, in your MediaWiki go to Special:NewItem and you should be able to create your first Item. Enter a label and optional description and aliases and hit Create. You should be redirected to the item page.

Wikibase Client

If you've enabled Wikibase Client and everything is correct, you should see an "Add links" link in the languagelinks section in the sidebar of the main page.

For developers

An easy way so set up a developer environment for Wikibase, is to use the wikibase_repo role in MediaWiki-Vagrant. It sets up a plain Wikibase repo installation including all dependent components. It provides a quick way to get ready for hacking on Wikibase code. Sources of the Wikibase extension can be found under /mediawiki/extensions/Wikibase and sources of dependent components are under /mediawiki/extensions/Wikibase/vendor.