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MediaWiki is a popular wiki software, designed for use on large-scale websites. It is used widely by a number of high-profile websites including, notably, Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. 

The MediaWiki project is driven by Wikipedia which is probably the largest and most successful instance of a wiki. The popularity of Wikipedia has helped MediaWiki to evolve and has also built a large population of competent users of this wiki. Not surprisingly, the documentation for MediaWiki is excellent.

If your hosting provider is running Fantastico, you can install and configure MediaWiki from the cPanel interface as shown in the last post.

For installing Geeklog in OpenSolaris 2008.05 OS, perform the following tasks:

1. Get Web Stack - Read the earlier post.
   
2. Get MediaWiki - You can download MediaWiki from the MediaWiki site.
3. Extract the archive.
4. Rename the installation directory to wiki and move this directory to /var/apache2/2.2/htdocs folder.
5. Prepare the DB - You do not need to do this manually. MediaWiki installation script creates the DB and sets user permissions.
6. Set necessary permission for installing MediaWiki - From the wiki directory, run chmod -R o+w config
7. Now you are set. Invoke the web installer by accessing the URL http://localhost/wiki
8. Follow the instructions and click Install MediaWiki button. For the Database Config section, provide values for DB Username and password. If the user is not already configured, it will be created. For advanced configuration, check out this page.
   
   
9. Once the installation is done, move LocalSettings.php from /var/apache2/2.2/htdocs/mediawiki/config to /var/apache2/2.2/htdocs/mediawiki
10. Access the wiki from the URL http://localhost/wiki.

You can improve the performance of MediaWiki by configuring memcached servers during installation. You can also setup multiple Solaris Zones for running memcached servers.

Tested Version - 1.12

PHP-Nuke is a web-based automated news publishing and content management system based on PHP and MySQL. The system is fully controlled using a web-based user interface. PHP-Nuke was originally a fork of the Thatware news portal system.

Modules may be added to the PHP-Nuke system, allowing the webmaster to add more features (such as an Internet forum or calendar) to their PHP-Nuke installation in addition to the core modules such as News, FAQ and Private Messaging.

If your hosting provider is ruuning Fantastico, you can install and configure PHP-Nuke from the cPanel interface as shown in the last post.

For installing Geeklog in OpenSolaris 2008.05 OS, perform the following tasks:

1. Get Web Stack - Read the earlier post.
   
2. Get PHP-Nuke - You can download PHP-Nuke from the PHP-Nuke site.
3. Extract the archive.
4. Rename the html sub-directory to nuke and move this directory to /var/apache2/2.2/htdocs folder.
5. Move the rest of the content (except html sub-directory) to /var/apache2/2.2/htdocs as a separate folder with the name nuke_files.
6. Create PHP-Nuke DB - Execute /usr/mysql/bin/mysqladmin -u root -p create nuke to create a DB by name nuke. You will be prompted to provide the password for root. The default password for root is an empty string.
7. Set necessary permission for PHP-Nuke DB - Run /usr/mysql/bin/mysql -u root -p. After providing the password, execute the query - grant select, insert, update, delete, create, drop, index, alter on nuke.* to 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY ''; from the MySQL prompt.
8. The schema for the nuke DB is available under /var/apache2/2.2/htdocs/nuke_files/sql/nuke.sql. From the MySQL prompt, run the commands to populate the schema: use nuke; and source /var/apache2/2.2/htdocs/nuke_files/sql/nuke.sql
9. Edit /var/apache2/2.2/htdocs/nuke/config.php file to provide the MySQL connection information as shown below:
   
• $dbhost = "localhost";
  $dbuname = "root";
  $dbpass = "";
  $dbname = "nuke";
  $prefix = "nuke";
  
10. Set necessary permission for the nuke directory - From the htdocs directory, run chmod o+w nuke.
11. From a browser window, invoke http://localhost/nuke.
12. Follow the link on the home page to create users/super-users.

PHP-Nuke has many reported security holes. You need to rely on unofficial patches to fix these security issues. Overall, it is an elegant portal and is supported by most of the Linux-PHP hosting providers.

Tested Version - 8.0

Geeklog is a web content management system suitable for running full-featured community sites. It supports article posting, threaded comments, event scheduling, and link management.

Geeklog is widely used by the community primarily because of the ease of installation. If your hosting provider is ruuning Fantastico, you can install and configure Geeklog from the cPanel interface as shown in the last post.

For installing Geeklog in OpenSolaris 2008.05 OS, perform the following tasks:

1. Get Web Stack - Read the earlier post.
   
2. Get Geeklog - You can download Geeklog from the Geeklog site.
3. Extract the archive.
4. Rename the public_html sub-directory to geeklog and move this directory to /var/apache2/2.2/htdocs folder.
5. Move the rest of the content (except public_html sub-directory) to /var/apache2/2.2/htdocs as a separate folder with the name geeklog_files.
6. Create Geeklog DB - Execute /usr/mysql/bin/mysqladmin -u root -p create geeklog to create a DB by name geeklog. You will be prompted to provide the password for root. The default password for root is an empty string.
7. Set necessary permission for Geeklog DB - Run /usr/mysql/bin/mysql -u root -p. After providing the password, execute the query - grant select, insert, update, delete, create, drop, index, alter on geeklog.* to 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY ''; from the MySQL prompt.
8. (Optional) Edit /var/apache2/2.2/htdocs/geeklog_files/db-config.php file to provide the MySQL connection information as shown below:
   
• $_DB_host = 'localhost';
  $_DB_name = 'geeklog';
  $_DB_user = 'root';
  $_DB_pass = '';
  $_DB_table_prefix = 'gl_';
  $_DB_dbms = 'mysql';
  
9. Set necessary permission for installing Geeklog - From the htdocs directory, run chmod o+w geeklog and chmod o+w geeklog_files
10. Invoke the installer script - From a browser window, invoke http://localhost/geeklog/admin/install/index.php. At this point you will get an error stating db-config.php is not found.
    
    
    
    Provide the path in the text field as /var/apache2/2.2/htdocs/geeklog_files/db-config.php
11. Follow the installation steps. You may need to provide DB related information.
12. Remove the geeklog_files directory from the htdocs directory.
    

For more info, read the Geeklog installation document.

Try out Geeklog today. In case, if you want to migrate your content to Drupal later, read this document.

Geeklog can easily be extended by the many community developed plugins to alter its functionality. Available plugins include forums, image galleries, and many more.

Tested Version - 1.5.0 

Drupal is an open-sourced Content Management System (CMS) that can be used to host a web-site with pluggable components like blogs, forums, posts, feeds, editorials, and triggers. Drupal is one of the common applications that a hosting service provider will offer you with a control panel interface for installing and configuring the application. Take for instance, cPanel that runs Fantastico. You can install and configure your blogs/websites and other applications through this intuitive interface.

If your hosting provider has no support for interfaces like these, you may need to install and configure applications manually. In this post, we will show you how you can install Drupal in OpenSolaris 2008.05 OS.

What do you need?

1. PHP Runtime Support - Drupal is a PHP based application, so you need a server with PHP support. If your hosting provider has already configured Apache Web Server with PHP, you are already set.
2. MySQL DB Support - Drupal needs a database to store the website content. You need to install and start MySQL server.

For installing and configuring Drupal, perform the following steps:

1. Get Drupal - You can download the Drupal application from http://drupal.org/download.
2. Get amp package - Refer this document for setting up AMP.
3. Extract Drupal package and move the directory to Apache's htdocs directory. In OpenSolaris 2008.05 OS, the path is /var/apache2/2.2/htdocs.
4. Set necessary permission for installing Drupal - From the Drupal directory, run chmod o+w sites/default/
5. Create a Drupal DB - Run /usr/mysql/bin/mysqladmin -u root -p create drupal (Provide the password for root. If you have not changed the default password for root, it is an empty string).
6. Set necessary permission for Drupal DB - Run /usr/mysql/bin/mysql -u root -p. After providing the password, execute the query - grant select, insert, update, delete, create, drop, index, alter on drupal.* to 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY ''; from the MySQL prompt.
7. Access the URL - http://localhost/drupal to proceed with the installation as shown in this document.
   

You can also install Drupal directly from the Web Stack repository, so you don't have to configure the system before installation. Read this blog entry.

If you are using NetBeans IDE 6.1, read this document on how to download the Drupal sources through the NetBeans CVS plug-in and build a PHP project and later host the application through Apache Web Server.

Tested Version - 6.2 

Happy hosting.