MediaWiki

The following are notes for testing/using some of the MediaWiki extensions that can be used with the MediaWiki appliance.
Please refer to the extensions documentation for details, no point in repeating them here...

Please see the MediaWiki Extensions doc page for further info. There is a section related to installing extensions.

WikiEditor: full-featured MediaWiki-integrated text editor that adds enhanced text processing functions to edit pages.

WikEd: provides an (alternate) improved interface for editing wikitext.

Preloader: Populate new pages with template content depending on namespace

/etc/mediawiki/extentions.php is already seeded with the following MediaWiki private namespaces:

$wgPreloaderSource[ NS_MEDIA ] = 'Template:Media';
$wgPreloaderSource[ NS_SPECIAL ] = 'Template:Special';
$wgPreloaderSource[ NS_MAIN ] = 'Template:Main';
$wgPreloaderSource[ NS_TALK ] = 'Template:Talk';
$wgPreloaderSource[ NS_USER ] = 'Template:User';
$wgPreloaderSource[ NS_USER_TALK ] = 'Template:User_Talk';
$wgPreloaderSource[ NS_WIKIPEDIA ] = 'Template:Wikipedia';
$wgPreloaderSource[ NS_WIKIPEDIA_TALK ] = 'Template:Wikipedia_Talk';
$wgPreloaderSource[ NS_IMAGE ] = 'Template:Image';
$wgPreloaderSource[ NS_IMAGE_TALK ] = 'Template:Image_Talk';
$wgPreloaderSource[ NS_MEDIAWIKI ] = 'Template:Mediawiki';
$wgPreloaderSource[ NS_MEDIAWIKI_TALK ] = 'Template:Mediawiki_Talk';
$wgPreloaderSource[ NS_TEMPLATE ] = 'Template:Template';
$wgPreloaderSource[ NS_TEMPLATE_TALK ] = 'Template:Template_Talk';
$wgPreloaderSource[ NS_HELP ] = 'Template:Help';
$wgPreloaderSource[ NS_HELP_TALK ] = 'Template:Help_Talk';
$wgPreloaderSource[ NS_CATEGORY ] = 'Template:Category';
$wgPreloaderSource[ NS_CATEGORY_TALK ] = 'Template:Category_Talk';

edit the user homepage template

http://appliance_ip/index.php/Template:User

create new user page (template text will "preloaded")

CharInsert: JavaScript character insert boxes used on edit type pages

create the following:

http://appliance_ip/index.php/MediaWiki:Edittools

insert which ever charaters you desire (refer to MediaWiki's Edittools as a reference)

edit a page, the charaters will appear at the bottom of the page.

To enable the MediaWiki math rendering engine, perform the following steps:

Install the mediawiki-math package and a couple of other dependancies

apt-get update
apt-get install mediawiki-math texlive-latex-extra dvipng

Create the math image and temp directories and change ownership to the web server user

mkdir -p /var/lib/mediawiki/images/{math,tmp}
chown www-data:www-data /var/lib/mediawiki/images/{math,tmp}

Add the following to /etc/mediawiki/LocalSettings.php or /etc/mediawiki/extensions.php

# Math engine
$wgUseTeX = true;
$wgUploadPath = "/images";
$wgUploadDirectory = "images";
$wgMathPath = "{$wgUploadPath}/math";
$wgMathDirectory = "{$wgUploadDirectory}/math";
$wgTmpDirectory = "{$wgUploadDirectory}/tmp";

Enable the extension and update MW DB

mwenext Math.php
php /usr/share/mediawiki/maintenance/update.php

Go create your math formulas...

Note: if you added the above to /etc/mediawiki/extensions.php you might have to clear mediawiki page cache.

More resources:

• http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Math
• http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_math_markup
• http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Formula

TurnKey Mediawiki v14.2 saw a change in how the Mediawiki software itself is installed. Since the Debian package is no longer present in jessie, the appliance now uses the upstream installation archive.

The migration from Mediawiki installed from Debian packages to the upstream Mediawiki now installed in the TurnKey Mediawiki appliance should be fairly straightforward. The paths containing various parts of the Mediawiki platform have changed.

As can be seen, the Mediawiki files are no longer scattered all over the filesystem but gathered in one place (the webroot, /var/www/mediawiki). While this is a bit of a hurdle, it allows one to use the upstream Mediawiki HOWTOs without adjusting them to the Debian paths. The process of migrating your old Mediawiki install to a new version should include moving over the file data, the database dump and the images.

Database

The database can be duplicated with the aid of mysqldump. The usual command looks like this:

# mysqldump -h localhost -u mediawiki -p mediawiki > backup.sql

Then upload the dump to the target machine using e. g. scp:

# scp backup.sql someuser@example.com:

Finally, load it to the target server's database:

# mysql < backup.sql

If your target machine is an already initialized instance of v14.2 TurnKey Mediawiki, it will have the needed user and database. The password however will be different; you can use the one in /var/www/mediawiki/LocalSettings.php on the target server.

Files

Mediawiki provides a script which makes obtaining "backups" of the file-based content easy.

# php /usr/share/mediawiki/maintenance/dumpBackup.php --current --report --output=bzip2:wikiexport.xml.bz2

Afterwards, copy the file to your new server using scp as already shown above. You can restore it with:

# bzip -d wikiexport.xml.bz2
# php /var/www/mediawiki/maintenance/importDump.php wikiexport.xml

Images

First, generate an archive of all images on the old server:

# tar cjf wikiimages.tar.bz2 /usr/share/mediawiki/images

Then, move it to the new location and import:

# tar xjf wikiimages.tar.bz2
# php /var/www/mediawiki/maintenance/importImages.php --overwrite --search-recursively images/

Finish

Finally, make sure that the permissions are set properly after you have performed the previous steps as root.

# chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/mediawiki

If you are installing TurnKey Mediawiki v14.2 over an old installation, preparing a full backup (instead of just the Mediawiki data as detailed above) in advance of the migration is advised.

For additional pointers, please consult the Mediawiki manual on moving as well as backing up and restoring from a backup.