How to install MediaWiki on 110mb.com using MySQL from ..net

Background: If you've visited Wikipedia, you've seen MediaWiki. Now the default wiki system when people talk about wikis, MediaWiki is one of the most successful wiki system arounds. Unfortunately, it requires MySQL, which is not provided free here at 110mb.com (thank God it isn't!).

..net is a website which offers free MySQL services. Although there had been a lot of negative comments about the site recently (with timing outs, and even offline times), it can still be a good MySQL service provider for not-so-busy websites.

The goal of this tutorial is to help you install MediaWiki on 110mb.com using MySQL from ..net.

The procedure:
1. Using the 1-Click Installer which can be accessed from your control panel, install MediaWiki. Wait for the system to finish installing MediaWiki, after which you will be brought to front page where you would be prompted to click on a link to the configuration script. Just hold there for the moment and go to ..net.
2. At ..net, create an account. Creating an account requires a valid email account since the activation link will be sent there. Account creation will take only a few minutes (including the activation). After you have activated your account, login to your ..net account and create a database. (Click on Database Manager, type a name for the database, add a comment, and click on "Create". Please wait for a few minutes as the system creates the database. Take note of the name you used for the database.)
3. Go back to your MediaWiki installation and click on the "set up the wiki" link, which will bring you to the configuration page. We will assume that you will have the sentence "Environment checked. You can install MediaWiki." at the end of the "Checking environment..." section of the configuration page. If you don't have that, please seek help at the forum since the next steps will be useless. You can use any setting you want for the other portions of the page; what is important to us are the following variables under "Database config":
* Database host - this is indicated in your ..net account once you are logged in. Mine is SQL06...NET (that's a zero-six)
* Database name - the name of the database that you created at ..net in Step 2.
* DB username - your ..net username
* DB password - your ..net password

Make sure that the "Use superuser account" checkbox is NOT checked.

That's it. Enter your other details and click on "Install MediaWiki" at the bottom of the page.

If you have problems, post at the forum and I'll try to see if I can help.

Using ..net for other software packages:
Generally the same procedure can be used for other packages (blogs, forums, etc). Just take note of the following:
* Your MySQL host is something like sql06...net
* The database name is the name of the database you created via your ..net panel.
* The database user is your ..net username, and the database password is your ..net password.

--Vincent Isles

P.S. When your website becomes very busy though, you will find ..net service not up to your expectation. Please support 110mb.com by paying the one-time upgrade free for MySQL.