Installing Wikka from Scratch


Short instructions

Notes:
See also:
Installing Wikka takes just a few steps:

  1. Unpack the distribution files
  1. Upload them into a directory that can be accessed via the web.
  1. Create a MySQL database for wikka
  1. Go to the corresponding URL. A web-based installer will walk you through the rest.

Example
If your website, say, http://www.mysite.com, is mapped to the directory /home/johnny/www/,
and you have uploaded the Wikka distribution files into /home/johnny/www/wikka/, you should go to
http://www.mysite.com/wikka/.

Longer version


  1. Download the wikka-file from the Wikkawiki HomePage. It is recommended to use the latest version marked as stable, unless you are interested in doing beta-testing (which is a good thing to be done, too).
  1. The file is a *.tar.gz file, which means that it is a packed file which you need to unpack. Windows users can use a program like Winzip, 7zip or Winrar for this. Make sure you let it re-create (sub) directories.
  1. Upload the contents of the Wikka directory into your webfolder (something like www or public_html, for example www-data in debian, apache on redhat linux); or a subdirectory of that if you prefer [see *note].
  1. Create the database for wikka. If you can, use http://www.phpmyadmin.net | for it, but you could also CreateNewDB from the prompt. If your host won't let you create a new database, don't worry - you can use an existing one and tell the installer to use a prefix for all the table names so there won't be any name clashes.
    You also need to have (or create) a user for the database with sufficient permissions for Wikka to use to access the database; this user needs all the usual permissions for reading, writing, modifying and deleting records, as well as creating tables (which is what the installer is going to do); being allowed to drop tables (not databases) may also be needed later.
  1. Point your browser to your web directory where Wikka is located - this will start the installer.
  1. Follow the instructions of the installer.

*note: If you are installing in a subdirectory and using mod_rewrite, see ModRewrite In Subdirectory Workaround.
*note: Rewrite problem does not appear only when installing Wikka in subdirectory, it can be also encountered even if you install Wikka at the root directory of your webserver. See Installation problems below for a workaround.

Installation problems


While installing Wikka, and if you don't get what you expected when pointing to http://yoursite/subdirectory_if_it_exists/ or http://yoursite/ if your wikka is installed at root (we'll name this URL ::indexpage::), then try these little steps:
  1. edit the file .htaccess and change RewriteEngine On to RewriteEngine Off
  1. go to the corresponding URL (::indexpage::). This should lead you to something like /wikka.php?wakka=HomePage. If that happens, and you get the first-step installation page, then
    1. smile, you can run Wikka. But don't continue the installation process yet.
    1. Re-edit the file .htaccess and restore the RewriteEngine directive to RewriteEngine On
    1. put a RewriteBase directive after it : RewriteBase / if you install wikka at root or RewriteBase /subdirectory/
    1. Go to ::indexpage::, if you are not redirected to another page, and if you get the first-step install page, then everything is okay. Continue the installation.
    1. If you get an error, your server might have disabled mod_rewrite. You should:
      1. consider disabling RewriteEngine and continue to use Wikka without it.
      1. Talk to your Administrator about mod_rewrite, or check up on Wikka and mod_rewrite if you control your server yourself.

Config file
During first installs, the installer will try to create a file called wikka.config.php in your Wikka directory. In order to do this, you will need to either make the Wikka directory writable by the web server, or create a new (empty) file called wikka.config.php which is writable by the web server. On Unix systems this can be done via the following commands:
touch wikka.config.php; chmod 666 wikka.config.php; (don't forget to remove write access again later, i.e. chmod 644 wikka.config.php).
If the installer still fails to create the file, it will dump the file's contents which you can then save and upload manually.

IMPORTANT: for installing or upgrading Wikka, do NOT access any of the files contained in the setup/ subdirectory. They're used by the web-based installer/updater and should not be called directly from a browser.

HTTPS
If you want to use HTTPS, you have to adjust the base dir, i.e. the path to your wikka which you enter during the installation must start with https instead of http. You can change this at any time in the configuration file.


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