MediaWiki is a PHP-based wiki system that is available for free as an open source product. Today I show how to install a MediaWiki service on the Synology disk station.
Option for professionals
Of course, as an experienced Synology user, you can log in right away with SSH and install the whole setup via Docker Compose file.
version: '3'
services:
mediawiki:
image: mediawiki
restart: always
ports:
- 8081:80
links:
- database
volumes:
- ./images:/var/www/html/images
# After initial setup, download LocalSettings.php to the same directory as
# this yaml and uncomment the following line and use compose to restart
# the mediawiki service
# - ./LocalSettings.php:/var/www/html/LocalSettings.php
database:
image: mariadb
restart: always
volumes:
- ./mysql:/var/lib/mysql
environment:
# @see https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/source/mediawiki/browse/master/includes/DefaultSettings.php
MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: my_wiki_pass1
MYSQL_DATABASE: my_wiki
MYSQL_USER: wikiuser
MYSQL_PASSWORD: my_wiki_pass
More useful Docker images for home use can be found in the Dockerverse.
Step 1: Prepare MediaWiki folder
I create a new directory named “wiki” in the Docker directory.
Step 2: Install database
After that, a database needs to be created. I click on the “Registration” tab in the Synology Docker window and search for “mariadb”. I select the Docker image “mariadb” and then click on the tag “latest”.
After the image download, the image is available as an image. Docker distinguishes between 2 states, container “dynamic state” and image (fixed state). Before we now create a container from the image, a few settings must be made.I double-click on my mariadb image.
After that I click on “Advanced settings” and activate the “Automatic restart”. I select the “Volume” tab and click on “Add Folder”. There I create a new database folder with this mount path “/var/lib/mysql”.
Under “Port Settings” all ports are deleted. This means that I select the “3306” port and delete it with the “-” button.
Variable name | Value | What is it? |
---|---|---|
TZ | Europe/Berlin | Time zone |
MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD | my_wiki_pass | Master password of the database. |
MYSQL_DATABASE | my_wiki | This is the database name. |
MYSQL_USER | wikiuser | User name of the wiki database. |
MYSQL_PASSWORD | my_wiki_pass | Password of the wiki database user. |
After these settings Mariadb server can be started! I press “Apply” everywhere.
Step 3: Install MediaWiki
I click on the “Registration” tab in the Synology Docker window and search for “mediawiki”. I select the Docker image “mediawiki” and then click on the tag “latest”.
I double-click on my Mediawiki image.
After that I click on “Advanced settings” and activate the “Automatic restart” here as well. I select the “Volume” tab and click on “Add Folder”. There I create a new folder with this mount path “/var/www/html/images”.
I assign fixed ports for the “MediaWiki” container. Without fixed ports it could be that the “MediaWiki server” runs on another port after a restart.
Also, a “link” to the “mariadb” container still needs to be created. I click on the “Links” tab and select the database container. The alias name should be remembered well for the wiki installation.
Finally, I enter an environment variable “TZ” with value “Europe/Berlin”.
The container can now be started. I call the Mediawiki server with the Synology IP address and my container port. At Database server I enter the alias name of the database container. I also enter the database name, user name and the password from “Step 2”.