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.