Interested in running your own MediaWiki instance on your own domain name? In response to a recent issue on the MediaWiki site, here are the basics: there are three issues involved:

1. Domain Name
2. Hosting
3. Installation

To expand a bit, you would first need a domain name which means you must purchase that from a domain name seller, or from your webhost. They will register the domain name for you and then you can use it. CiviHosting of course can sell you a domain name.

Next you need hosting for your wiki. For this, you need to purchase a hosting account from a web host who can work with MediaWiki. We can recommend one, but we’ll let you guess which. 🙂

Last is that once you have a domain name and a host, you must install MediaWiki. The software is free to download and use, but of course it must be installed. Some hosts offer a automatic installer and some of those work, but others are prone to bugs. You can also install it manually and we have a blog post called How to Install MediaWiki that describes how to do that.

Or you can ask your host to do it for you. Some may do that, but most will tell you that’s not covered in their hosting services.

With CiviHosting, of course we are always happy to install whatever web software you need.