Manual:Running MediaWiki on FreeBSD
This installation guide assumes you are installing on the local machine (localhost) and that you are logged in as the superuser (root).
Set up the requirements
[edit]Instructions tested on FreeBSD 14.0 with the newest[2023-12-24] packages for mediawiki139 (LTS).
Database
[edit]Install the typical database server(At the time of writing mysql80 is the default version) for MediaWiki
pkg install mysql80-server
Enable MySQL at startup
service mysql-server enable
Start MySQL as the database server
service mysql-server start
Secure the MySQL installation
/usr/local/bin/mysql_secure_installation
Apache
[edit]Install the typical web server Apache (2.4)
pkg install apache24
Apache (2.4) at startup
service apache24 enable
Edit the config file of the web server Apache (2.4) to find MediaWiki
$EDITOR /usr/local/etc/apache24/httpd.conf
#DocumentRoot "/usr/local/www/apache24/data"
DocumentRoot "/usr/local/www/mediawiki"
<Directory "/usr/local/www/mediawiki">
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
DirectoryIndex index.php
AllowOverride None
Require all granted
</Directory>
Install the module for the web server Apache (2.4) to handle PHP(At the time of writing php82 is the default)
pkg install mod_php82
By installing this package there will be a line added to the config file of the web server Apache (2.4).
- Check the entry for the module php_module
grep php /usr/local/etc/apache24/httpd.conf
LoadModule php_module libexec/apache24/libphp.so
Edit the config file of the web server Apache (2.4) to handle PHP
$EDITOR /usr/local/etc/apache24/httpd.conf
<IfModule php_module>
DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps
</IfModule>
Please check that you set up your hostname at the config file of system environment (for booting next time).
grep hostname /etc/rc.conf
hostname="wiki.your-domain.tld"
- If it is not set you might add it to the config file of system environment (for booting next time).
sysrc hostname="wiki.your-domain.tld"
Install MediaWiki
[edit]See Manual:Installing MediaWiki
 Warning: | MediaWiki FreeBSD packages are not maintained by the MediaWiki community. Use them at your own risk, they may be broken |
Otherwise you can install MediaWiki with the packages provided by FreeBSD directly.
There are several versions of MediaWiki available at FreeBSD. Which are available at present, you can check via pkg.
pkg search mediawiki
Instructions tested on FreeBSD 14.0 with php82
pkg install mediawiki139-php82
Install additional packages for full support of default MediaWiki
[edit]Install the version control system git
pkg install git-lite
Install additional package to handle displaying pictures for PHP
pkg install php82-pecl-imagick
Install additional package to can caching for PHP
pkg install php82-pecl-APCu
Replace php82- by the PHP version you want, for example php81- or php83-.
SVG support
[edit]Add the following lines to LocalSettings.php to allow SVG upload and to enable thumbnail and preview rendering with Inkscape:
$wgFileExtensions = [ 'png', 'gif', 'jpg', 'jpeg', 'svg' ];
$wgSVGConverters = [
'Inkscape' => '/usr/local/bin/inkscape -z -w $width -f $input -e $output',
];
$wgSVGConverter = 'Inkscape';
Obviously, Inkscape must be installed for this to work (pkg_add -r inkscape). Wikipedia is still using rsvg for SVG rendering, which produces less accurate results than Inkscape but is faster.[1]