Manual:Installing MediaWiki on Windows Server 2016

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The goal of this guide is to give a quick way to install MediaWiki on a Windows Server 2016 environment. This installation does not need Apache web service to be installed. It can also be used to install MediaWiki on Windows Server 2019.

Requirements

The following items will be required:

  • Administrator permission
  • PHP Non Thread Safe Zip for Windows (64-bit)
  • MariaDB or MySQL. MariaDB is the primary target for MediaWiki and is best supported. MediaWiki also works with MySQL and Percona Server, which are MariaDB compatible. PostgreSQL is a popular open source database system as an alternative to MySQL. SQLite is a lightweight database system that is very well supported.
  • MediaWiki
  • Software to extract the MediaWiki .zip installer file
  • Visual C++ Redistributable Packages or Visual Studio (64-bit)

Instructions

Internet Information Services (IIS)

To install IIS follow the steps below:

  1. Open Server Manager, select Roles.
  2. Add the Web Server role and include the following:
  • Common HTTP Features -> HTTP Redirection
  • Application Development -> CGI.
  1. Once complete, open web browser and go to http://127.0.0.1/.

Set Default Document

Set default document to index.php.

  1. Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager and select the server name from the list.
  2. Go to Default Document.
  3. Add index.php and move it to top of the list.

PHP

To install PHP follow the steps below:

  1. Install the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable. For PHP 8+, Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable current version (common for Visual Studio 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2022) has to be installed on the server.
  2. Extract the PHP zip into to a location of your choice. In this example C:\PHP is used.
  3. Create the php.ini file by opening the php.ini-production file and saving it as php.ini.
  4. Open your C:\PHP\php.ini file in Notepad and uncomment the values below by removing the semi colon symbol (;). Line numbers are specific for PHP 8.0.3, but depend on version. Newer versions use the format extension=<ext> instead of extension='php_<ext>.dll for the extensions.
    1. extension_dir = "ext" (Line 770)
    2. cgi.force_redirect = 1 (Line 787)
    3. cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1 (Line 807)
    4. fastcgi.impersonate = 1 (Line 819)
    5. fastcgi.logging = 0 (Line 823)
    6. extension=curl (Line 923)
    7. extension=fileinfo (Line 926)
    8. extension=gd2 (Line 927)
    9. extension=intl (Line 930)
    10. extension=mbstring (Line 933)
    11. extension=mysqli (Line 935)
    12. extension=openssl (Line 939)
    13. extension=pdo_sqlite (Line 945)
    14. extension=pgsql (Line 946)
    15. extension=sockets (Line 954)
    16. extension=sqlite3 (Line 956)
  5. Edit permissions on the images directory of the MediaWiki installation and add IIS_IUSR with modify privileges.
  6. Edit permissions on the temp directory of windows (C:\Windows\Temp) and add IIS_IUSR with modify privileges.
  7. Adding PHP in IIS as FastCGI application (after installing PHP):
    1. Open Server Manager, select Tools, Internet Information Services (IIC) Manager
    2. Select on the left side under Start Page your server
    3. Open in Feature Views the icon Handler Mappings by double-click
    4. Select Add Module Mapping... in the Actions pane.
    5. Add *.php as Request path.
    6. Choose FastCgiModule as Module from the drop down list.
    7. Add the path to the php-cgi.exe file in the Executable field. (C:\PHP\php-cgi.exe in this example)
    8. Add PHP_via_FastCGI as name.
    9. Open the Request Restrictions menu and select File or folder.
  8. Create a file called C:\inetpub\wwwroot\phpinfo.php, include the lines below.
  9. Open web browser and access http://127.0.0.1/phpinfo.php, it should bring up a PHP information page.
Contents of file phpinfo.php
<?php phpinfo();

Database

MySQL

To install MySQL follow the steps below:

  1. Launch the installer, select Server only.
    1. After the installer finishes installation you will be prompted to run the MySQL Server Instance Configuration Wizard.
    2. Select Server Machine, then click Next
    3. Confirm Enable TCP/IP Networking and Add firewall exception for this port are checked, then click Next.
    4. Enter in root password, then click Next. Do not use your administrator password or any other important password because MediaWiki writes the password in cleartext into LocalSettings.php!
    5. Confirm Install as Windows Service is checked, then click Next.

MariaDB

To install MariaDB follow the steps below:

  1. Launch the installer and continue to Default instance properties.
    1. Enter in root password, then click Next. Do not use your administrator password or any other important password because MediaWiki writes the password in cleartext into LocalSettings.php!

MediaWiki

To install MediaWiki follow the steps below:

  1. Extract the media wiki archive into C:\inetpub\wwwroot\mediawiki directory. Note: DO NOT USE 7zip, it does not deal with PAX and will leave you with a 500 error on config. See: Topic:Vp73pxywm362a3t5
  2. If you have just one .tar file, extract that file into the C:\inetpub\wwwroot\mediawiki directory.
  3. If you want MediaWiki to be the default website follow the optional instructions below.
  4. Configure MediaWiki by accessing the configuration URL (http://[server name]/mediawiki/mw-config/index.php).
  5. Follow guide for using the configuration script. Ignore the GNU diff3 not found error.

Create specific IIS website for MediaWiki (Optional)

Configure MediaWiki as the default website for a host name or an IP address.

  1. Select a name for the web site.
  2. Rename the C:\inetpub\wwwroot\mediawiki folder to C:\inetpub\wwwroot\[web site name].
  3. Open the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager, open the server name from the list.
  4. Right click on Sites and choose Add Web Site....
    1. Enter the web site name in the Site Name field.
    2. Change the physical directory to C:\inetpub\wwwroot\[web site name].
    3. Add a host name for your website or select an IP address.
  5. Click OK to create the web site.

GNU diff3 Installation (Optional)

Install GNU diff3 files.

  1. Create directory GnuWin in C:\Program Files (x86).
  2. Navigate to DiffUtils website.
  3. Download the file diffutils-2.8.7-1-bin.zip.
  4. Extract to the C:\Temp directory.
  5. Copy the bin directory to C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuWin.
  6. Navigate to File website.
  7. Download the file file-5.03-bin.zip.
  8. Extract to the C:\Temp directory.
  9. Copy the bin directory to C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuWin.
  10. Update the LocalSettings.php located in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\[media wiki name].

Original LocalSettings.php 

# Path to the GNU diff3 utility. Used for conflict resolution.
$wgDiff3 = "";

Updated LocalSettings.php 

# Path to the GNU diff3 utility. Used for conflict resolution.
$wgDiff3 = "C:/Program Files (x86)/GnuWin/bin/diff3.exe";
# Use external mime detector
$wgMimeDetectorCommand = "C:/Program Files (x86)/GnuWin/bin/file.exe -bi";

Common Errors

  • No styling when installing MediaWiki: Set the permissions for the temp directory of windows (C:\Windows\Temp) and add IUSR with modify privileges.
  • IIS 500 Error code: Install the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable.
  • 500 Error code on initial configuration (http://[server name]/mediawiki/mw-config/index.php). page: Topic:Vp73pxywm362a3t5
  • Error 1025/Errno. 13 whilst running installation script: ensure that the Application Pool being used by the wiki website is set as follows - Net CLR Version = No Managed Code; Managed Pipeline Mode = Classic

Notes

This installation was tested with versions:

  • Windows Server 2016
  • IIS 10
  • PHP 7.0.1+
  • MySQL 5.7.12 / MariaDB 10.1.18
  • MediaWiki 1.26+
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