> Sford wiki > Sford wiki setup

First I had to get the fine folks at http://suso.org to set me up. This took a while, mainly because I told them that it was very low priority and really guys, don't go out of your way or anything if it's a PITA. And it was a bit of a PITA for them so I just kept checking in every three months or so until Jan '08. Then I had some real reasons for wanting the wiki and asked that they bump the priority. About 2 days later, it was up and running. I like suso.

At any rate, they told me to run http://wiki.geeky-boy.com/w/config/index.php and configure the wiki. Here's how I filled it out (most of them were defaulted):

 MediaWiki 1.11.0 Installation
 ... (lots of warnings)
 Wiki name: Geekyinfo
 Contact e-mail: sford@geeky-boy.com
 Language: en - English
 No license metadata
 Admin username: WikiSysop
 Password: (yeah right, I'm going to record it here)
 Password confirm: (yah right, I'm going to record it hear)
 Shared memory caching: No caching
 E-mail features (global): Enabled
 User-to-user e-mail: Enabled
 E-mail notification about changes: Enabled for changes to user discussion pagefs and to pages on watchlists
 E-mail address authentication: Enabled
 Database type: MySQL
 Database host: mysql2.suso.org
 Database name: sford_wikidb
 DB username: sford
 DB password: (Still hoping, eh?)
 DB password confirm: (Still hoping, huh?)
 Superuser name: root
 Superuser password: (Oh all right, I'll tell you.  The pass word is *BANG* URRK! *thud*)
 Database table prefix: gi_
 Storage Engine: InnoDB
 Database character set: Backwards-compatible UTF-8

Then, as per instructions, I moved the config/LocalSettings.php file up a directory, set it's file mode (permissions) to 660, and moved the config directory to ~/wiki_config. Then uploaded the whirlpool galaxy pic to skins/common/images/GeekyInfo.jpg.

Then, based in part on the instructions I found at http://23rdworld.com/2007/03/30/how-to-make-your-mediawiki-private/ I added the following lines to the LocalSettings.php file:

 $wgLogo = "skins/common/images/GeekyInfo.jpg";
 # This snippet prevents new registrations from anonymous users
 # (Sysops can still create user accounts)
 $wgGroupPermissions['*']['createaccount'] = false;
 # $wgGroupPermissions['*']['read'] = false;
 $wgGroupPermissions['*']['edit'] = false;
 $wgWhitelistRead = array( "Main Page", "Special:Userlogin", "-", "MediaWiki:Monobook.css" );

This lets the world read the wiki, but requires an account to edit it. It also disables account creation by anybody except for admins.

Then I created the MediaWiki:Nosuchuser page. (Note that the content of that page is *not* normally displayed as a wiki page, but instead as an error message. As a result, wikitext isn't interpreted.

Then I created accounts "SfordSysop" and "Sford", gave the former admin privileges, and created user and talk pages for them. Then I created the user and talk pages for them and created the Main Page. Then, I protected the main page, the privileged user pages, and a small admin tips page I created.

I think that's about it. Oh, somewhere in there I created the Geekyinfo:About page and set a few watch pages here and there.