From: Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org
Philip Beach wrote:
Hey all,
Is it safe to upgrade my wiki using the script while the site is under heavy use? Should I disable access first?
You can follow the suggested procedure in the FAQ:
<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:FAQ#Can_my_wiki_stay_online_while_it_is...
While it may say so in the fine print, it sure seems scary to me!
Personally, I do the following: 1) post an announcement of scheduled system maintenance, 2) take the site down, 3) backup the database, 4) upgrade, 5) test, 6) bring it back on-line.
Perhaps that's excessively conservative. I'm guessing if the MediaWiki FAQ says you can do it, Wikipedia probably gets away with it, but it still seems scary to me!
:::: The old normal is that life will go on just like before. The new normal is that nothing will ever be the same. -- Dmitry Orlov :::: :::: Jan Steinman, EcoReality http://www.EcoReality.org ::::
I often put the database into read-only mode so that people can still access the site while the upgrade is happening. Granted the MW site that I run isn't "overly busy" it serves its purpose and haven't had any complaints yet... I would highly recommend that you test the upgrade for any issues with Extensions that you have first though as I have run into problems on occasion with them breaking (having a test box to do this on helps, otherwise you could duplicate the server files and database and do the upgrade on that copy of MW if a separate box isn't an option for you).
I do this by placing the following in the LocalSettings.php
$wgReadOnly = 'Currently there is maintenance occuring on the Wiki. This should be completed by 11:30 Friday at which point updates can be made again';
If anybody thinks this is a bad idea then I would like to hear from them and why!
Cheers Cameron
On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 12:42 PM, Jan Steinman Jan@bytesmiths.com wrote:
From: Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org
Philip Beach wrote:
Hey all,
Is it safe to upgrade my wiki using the script while the site is under heavy use? Should I disable access first?
You can follow the suggested procedure in the FAQ:
<
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:FAQ#Can_my_wiki_stay_online_while_it_is...
While it may say so in the fine print, it sure seems scary to me!
Personally, I do the following:
- post an announcement of scheduled system maintenance,
- take the site down,
- backup the database,
- upgrade,
- test,
- bring it back on-line.
Perhaps that's excessively conservative. I'm guessing if the MediaWiki FAQ says you can do it, Wikipedia probably gets away with it, but it still seems scary to me!
:::: The old normal is that life will go on just like before. The new normal is that nothing will ever be the same. -- Dmitry Orlov :::: :::: Jan Steinman, EcoReality <http://www.EcoReality.orghttp://www.ecoreality.org/> ::::
MediaWiki-l mailing list MediaWiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
Perhaps that's excessively conservative.
In http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Wiki_family#Upgrading it just takes a couple of seconds to upgrade several wikis... but not tested under heavy traffic...
mediawiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org