Quick start

Canasta is a fully featured MediaWiki distribution that bundles MediaWiki with over 170 extensions and skins, a database server, a web server, and a caching layer into a single containerized package supporting both Docker Compose and Kubernetes. It is designed to make it easy to set up, manage, and maintain enterprise-grade wikis without needing deep knowledge of MediaWiki's internals.

Supported platforms

Platform	Architectures
Linux	AMD64/x86-64, ARM64/AArch64
macOS	Intel (AMD64), Apple Silicon (ARM64)
Windows	Use WSL with Linux version

Canasta CLI

To set up Canasta, use the Canasta CLI (command-line interface). It lets you install and use Canasta without having to know anything about the underlying container technology. Once installed, the CLI can be used to:

• Create new Canasta instances (single wikis or wiki farms) on the local host or remote hosts
• Manage extensions and skins
• Back up and restore with Restic
• Import and export wiki data
• Upgrade existing instances
• Manage multiple hosts from a single controller via SSH

Quick start

1. Install the CLI

curl -fsSL https://get.canasta.wiki | bash

This installs in Docker mode (the default), which only requires Docker on the host. For native (non-Docker) installation and platform-specific details, see the Installation guide. Linux users should add their user to the docker group and the web server group for their distribution (e.g. www-data on Debian/Ubuntu) before proceeding.

2. Create a wiki

canasta create -i myinstance -w wiki1 -n example.com

Flag	Meaning	Example
-i	Instance ID — a name for this Canasta instance	myinstance
-w	Wiki ID — used as the database name and in file paths	wiki1
-n	Domain name the wiki will be served on	example.com

This pulls the Canasta Docker images, creates the instance directory, starts the containers, initializes the database, and runs update.php. It may take a few minutes on first run.

To create the instance on a remote host instead of the local machine, add --host:

canasta create --host user@remote.example.com -i myinstance -w wiki1 -n example.com

See Help:Multi-host management for details.

3. Access your wiki

Once creation completes:

• URL: Open https://example.com in a browser (or https://localhost if testing locally)
• Admin login: Username is WikiSysop; the generated password is saved to config/admin-password_wiki1 inside the instance directory
• Instance directory: The CLI prints the path — cd into it to run further commands

4. Next steps

• Enable extensions: canasta extension enable VisualEditor,Cite — see Extensions and skins
• Configure settings: Add PHP or YAML files to config/settings/ — see Settings
• Set up a logo: See Configuring logos
• Add more wikis: canasta add -w docs -u example.com/docs — see Wiki farms
• Back up: canasta backup create — see Backup and restore
• Import an existing wiki: Pass a database dump with -d — see Importing an existing wiki
• Verify your environment: canasta doctor reports whether all required dependencies are installed.

For the full CLI command reference, see CLI reference.