[Mediawiki-l] Multiple wikis sharing single database and same database prefix

[JJArmistead at comcast.net]

Referring to discussions about this topic

http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/htdig/mediawiki-l/2005-October/007450.html

I want to have two wikis installed on the one server.

Both will use the same MySQL database, wikidb

Both will have the same database prefix (or both will have NO database prefix).

Both the wikis will have separate virtual paths e.g. /wikiA and /wikiB configured in Apache

I want to configure one (wiki "A") with extra Custom Namespaces (via $wgExtraNamespaces in LocalSettings.php), and limit Apache to serving those pages only to users within a specific in-house IP address block.  Consider this to be the "Private:" namespace, plus an associateed "Private_Talk:" namespace for discussion pages.

The other wiki (wiki "B") will have just the standard MediaWiki namespaces.  This is the "Ordinary user" namespace.

Each wiki will have its own LocalSettings.php to account for this., but all the other files will be shared between the two wikis.

Some questions:

1. Will searches by users on wiki "B" only see articles in the "Ordinary user" namespaces ?  Or will it also see the "Private" namespaces too ?

2. What takes precedence: interwiki prefixes or namespace prefixes ?  If I set up the interwiki table so that Private: and Private_Talk: redirect to wiki "B"'s http address, will that also affect wiki "A"'s users ?

It seems, perhaps simplistically, to be an easy way of having one set of wiki tables, yet giving some simple security to the "Private" namespaces that wiki "A"'s users can edit and view.

Is this possible ?  Or am I miles off track ?  Are there any security aspects I didn't consider ?

Cheers

Jason