SubSurfWiki:Training/Under the hood of a wiki

Most installs sit on a Linux server running a MySQL database, Apache HTTP server, and PHP programming environment. This combination is often referred to as a LAMP bundle or stack (sometimes containing Perl or Python as the programming layer, instead of PHP). It is completely free, open source software.

MediaWiki is a PHP application installed on top of the LAMP stack. It contains the PHP files and configuration files needed to render wikitext and metadata from the MySQL database as human-readable wiki pages, and to allow the user to log in and edit them. The installation also contains the image files and some other data as flat files.



Inside the MediaWiki application are various levels of access and functionality. Because there are several ways to add content and functionality — as PHP extensions, as templates, and as primary content — the environment is very flexible and adaptable.

Special pages provide some information about the install, for example:


 * Special:Version gives the components and version numbers of the software stack, as well as all the extensions
 * Special:ListGroupRights gives the different access levels of the users in the wiki