Florent Georges wrote:
Platonides wrote:
Hi,
Thank you for this detailed response!
> Is there anything I should know in
particular? The server
> I have to install MediaWiki on is using Ubuntu. Is there
> anything wrong with its packaging of MediaWiki?
First issue is that latest ubuntu, released on
October only
provides mediawiki 1.13.3, while latest stable version is
1.15.1. The 1.13 branch was released in August 2008 and has
ended its one-year support from mediawiki developers.
Yes, that's the traditional point in developer communities
regarding packaging systems maintained outside the communities
themselves. So that's what I first checked, and on my Ubuntu
Server 9.10 the version seems to be 1..15.0.
My fault, I thought I was checking the version of Ubuntu 9.10 but was
instead seeing the version at 9.4. It's nice to see they updated it.
Ok, that's neither
the very latest one release 1.15.1, nor the latest trunk revision
(but he, do I really want to run a trunk in production, for a
product I am not a developer of? :-/)
1.15.1 is a bugfix over 1.15.0 so if they independently fixed their
version, it's ok I guess.
MediaWiki trunk is very stable. But I don't recommend to blindly run
it on a production site.
I think I haven't changed anything regarding APT
on that
server, but maybe I did, hence the difference...
Installation of MediaWiki is done via a friendly
web page on
both methods.
Mmh, that's more a cons than a pro for me, as I install them
from scripts (so we can replicate the entire environment in
several copies: dev, test, prod, etc.) I send an HTTP request
from the scripts to simulate the user behind a browser, but that
seems quite fragile to me. Maybe I should instead save a copy of
LocalSettings.php and simply copy it instead...
Create the database and insert there the content of
maintenance/tables.sql (read the comments at the beginning). You may
want to take care on the collation when you create the tables.
You can use (or require) a base LocalSettings and change just the dbname
and paths.
On the other
hand, they move the mediawiki files over the
filesystem, so instead of having "everything in one folder",
it's spread in /etc/, /var/lib/mediawiki/,
/usr/share/doc/mediawiki/...
Any documentation will refer to the official
location, so this
redistribution often results in a user unable to locate its
files.
From a maintenance PoV, I think this is a good thing, as this
integrate better in the system's backups, right management, which
partitions are in read-write or read-only, etc. But I do not
have any strong opinion here.
The only things to backup in MediaWiki are the database, the images/
folder and LocalSettings.php
The webserver only needs write access to images/ math/ and, if using
the web installer, config/ (which can be completely deleted after install).
Thanks again for those interesting thoughts. I do
not know
exactly where, but at some point I think I've been convinced
installing directly from a release would be the best option for
me.
Interestingly enough, I do not thing that's because of any of
the above points ;-), but rather because I need to maintain
MediaWiki for several virtual hosts on the same system, and to be
able to install any of them from automatic scripts. I guess that
will be easier to control everything I need if I install
everything myself than relying on the APT package (in particular
the exact version I install).
That's funny. :)
Use whatever fits you better.
Some soft are easy to use in this kind of
configuration. For
instance you install the SVN softs once, then create separate
homes for repositories for different hosts. For MediaWiki, I
feel it is easier to install it once per host, and this is not
possible with a system like APT.
Thanks again, regards,
You are welcome.