ok, have made some progress in reverse-engineering all this stuff...now a simple question.
When the sysop doesn't have an email address, how can you reset the password? running mediawiki 1.3.1...
Quoting Jason Davies, from the post of Wed, 09 Feb:
ok, have made some progress in reverse-engineering all this stuff...now a simple question.
When the sysop doesn't have an email address, how can you reset the password? running mediawiki 1.3.1...
I'd go edit the database table directly. it should not be too tricky if you have phpmyadmin installed.
I'd go edit the database table directly. it should not be too tricky if you have phpmyadmin installed.
I'm snarled up with territorial issues on accessing stuff (ie the directories in which the database is stored) so i'm not even sure I can do this myself! But someone, somewhere, can...I'm trying to get them to let me access it directly. So i don't know if it is installed, but I imagine it is...
So you can just edit the database? Someone looked at that and said the password was encrypted. if he just removes it and then enters another one in plain text - will that work?
thanks for response...
So you can just edit the database? Someone looked at that and said the password was encrypted. if he just removes it and then enters another one in plain text - will that work?
okay it's done. we just added my email to the database so I could have a new password sent. Thanks for your time.
On 9 Feb 2005, at 09:58, Jason Davies wrote:
I'd go edit the database table directly. it should not be too tricky if you have phpmyadmin installed.
I'm snarled up with territorial issues on accessing stuff (ie the directories in which the database is stored) so i'm not even sure I can do this myself!
You don't access a database through directories!
If it's MySQL, I agree that phpMyAdmin is a great (albeit a bit geeky) tool. If you're on MacOS X, I recommend CocoaMySQL. If you're on Windoze, I'm sure there are freeware/shareware MySQL graphical clients you can use.
Once you have access to your MediaWiki database, go to the mw_user table, clear the user_password field, press the SQL tab to enter the following code (from memory, double check fieldnames, etc.):
UPDATE mw_user SET user_newpassword MD5(CONCAT('WikiSysop-', MD5('temppassword'))) WHERE user_name = 'WikiSysop'
Thanks to Brion for starting me down that path a few days ago. I used that technique to set a common initial password for 83 users that were loaded directly into the mw_user table. (These are unsophisticated users who will have enough trouble typing their name and the common password into the login screen, let alone creating their own accounts. Plus, I wanted consistent user names to make future maintenance easier. I know we'd end up with "Bob", "Bob1", "Bob2" as well as other meaningless handles.)
If you are not using MySQL, Your Mileage May Differ.
But you "own" your database. Your ISP or parent organization SHOULD give you access to it somehow, even though I agree they should NOT give you access to the database directories.
Another approach once you have access to the database: put in an email address for the user, then go back to MediaWiki and press the "mail be a password" button.
:::: Beware of the military-industrial complex. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower :::: Jan Steinman http://www.Bytesmiths.com
I used that technique to set a common initial password for 83 users that were loaded directly into the mw_user table. (These are unsophisticated users who will have enough trouble typing their name and the common password into the login screen, let alone creating their own accounts.
I'm facing doing that soon. Are you saying you can do a great load of them in one go? (with the mac software you mentioned)
I got the hang of HTML, then stopped doing websites. I got the hang of GREP then stopped needing it. I got the hang of LaTeX but have no time to write. Now i am learning about wikis and php and MySQL...sigh....
But you "own" your database. Your ISP or parent organization SHOULD give you access to it somehow, even though I agree they should NOT give you access to the database directories.
Another approach once you have access to the database: put in an email address for the user, then go back to MediaWiki and press the "mail be a password" button.
it's not that simple...it's housed in a directory belonging to someone else (long story!). It is being resolved but there are 'issues'...(not unreasonable ones).
In fact i've done what i needed through their admin interface. But i thought this would give me access to the actual php files, so I've clearly got confused about the structure of this thing...i'm only a mortal university lecturer...
On 9 Feb 2005, at 10:24, Jason Davies wrote:
But you "own" your database... even though I agree they should NOT give you access to the database directories.
it's not that simple...it's housed in a directory belonging to someone else (long story!).
I think you miss my point. You don't need directory access. MySQL (assuming that's what we're talking about here) has its own access control system. If MediaWiki can get into it, you can too, if you have the tool (or can write a bit of PHP.)
..i'm only a mortal university lecturer...
Hey, we all started somewhere! Hope I didn't inadvertently insult you.
:::: You know you have reached perfection of design not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away. -- Antoine de'Exupery :::: Jan Steinman http://www.Bytesmiths.com
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