docs/distributors.txt

   1 This document is intended to provide useful advice for parties seeking to
   2 redistribute MediaWiki to end users.  It's targeted particularly at maintainers
   3 for Linux distributions, since it's been observed that distribution packages of
   4 MediaWiki often break.  We've consistently had to recommend that users seeking
   5 support use official tarballs instead of their distribution's packages, and
   6 this often solves whatever problem the user is having.  It would be nice if
   7 this could change.
   8
   9 == Background: why web applications are different ==
  10
  11 MediaWiki is intended to be usable on any web host that provides support for
  12 PHP and a database.  Many users of low-end shared hosting have very limited
  13 access to their machine: often only FTP access to some subdirectory of the web
  14 root.  Support for these users entails several restrictions, such as:
  15
  16   1) We cannot require installation of any files outside the web root.  Few of
  17   our users have access to directories like /usr or /etc.
  18   2) We cannot require the ability to run any utility on the command line.
  19   Many shared hosts have exec() and similar PHP functions disabled.
  20   3) We cannot assume that the software has write access anywhere useful.  The
  21   user account that MediaWiki (including its installer) runs under is often
  22   different from the account the user used to upload the files, and we might be
  23   restricted by PHP settings such as safe mode or open_basedir.
  24   4) We cannot assume that the software even has read access anywhere useful.
  25   Many shared hosts run all users' web applications under the same user, so
  26   they can't rely on Unix permissions, and must forbid reads to even standard
  27   directories like /tmp lest users read each others' files.
  28   5) We cannot assume that the user has the ability to install or run any
  29   programs not written as web-accessible PHP scripts.
  30
  31 Since anything that works on cheap shared hosting will work if you have shell
  32 or root access too, MediaWiki's design is based around catering to the lowest
  33 common denominator.  Although we support higher-end setups as well (like
  34 Wikipedia!), the way many things work by default is tailored toward shared
  35 hosting.  These defaults are unconventional from the point of view of normal
  36 (non-web) applications -- they might conflict with distributors' policies, and
  37 they certainly aren't ideal for someone who's installing MediaWiki as root.
  38
  39 == Directory structure ==
  40
  41 Because of constraint (1) above, MediaWiki does not conform to normal
  42 Unix filesystem layout.  Hopefully we'll offer direct support for standard
  43 layouts in the future, but for now *any change to the location of files is
  44 unsupported*.  Moving things and leaving symlinks will *probably* not break
  45 anything, but it is *strongly* advised not to try any more intrusive changes to
  46 get MediaWiki to conform more closely to your filesystem hierarchy.  Any such
  47 attempt will almost certainly result in unnecessary bugs.
  48
  49 The standard recommended location to install MediaWiki, relative to the web
  50 root, is /w (so, e.g., /var/www/w).  Rewrite rules can then be used to enable
  51 "pretty URLs" like /wiki/Article instead of /w/index.php?title=Article.  (This
  52 is the convention Wikipedia uses.)  In theory, it should be possible to enable
  53 the appropriate rewrite rules by default, if you can reconfigure the web
  54 server, but you'd need to alter LocalSettings.php too.  See
  55 <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Short_URL> for details on short URLs.
  56
  57 If you really must mess around with the directory structure, note that the
  58 following files *must* all be web-accessible for MediaWiki to function
  59 correctly:
  60
  61   * api.php, img_auth.php, index.php,opensearch_desc.php, profileinfo.php,
  62   redirect.php, thumb.php, trackback.php.  These are the entry points for
  63   normal usage.  This list may be incomplete and is subject to change.
  64   * config/index.php: Used for web-based installation (sets up the database,
  65   prompts for the name of the wiki, etc.).  No command-line installation is
  66   currently available.
  67   * images/: Used for uploaded files.  This could be somewhere else if
  68   $wgUploadDirectory and $wgUploadPath are changed appropriately.
  69   * skins/*/: Subdirectories of skins/ contain CSS and JavaScript files that
  70   must be accessible to web browsers.  The PHP files and Skin.sample in skins/
  71   don't need to be accessible.  This could be somewhere else if
  72   $wgStyleDirectory and $wgStylePath are changed appropriately.
  73   * extensions/: Many extensions include CSS and JavaScript files in their
  74   extensions directory, and will break if they aren't web-accessible.  Some
  75   extensions might theoretically provide additional entry points as well, at
  76   least in principle.
  77
  78 But all files should keep their position relative to the web-visible
  79 installation directory no matter what.  If you must move includes/ somewhere in
  80 /usr/share, provide a symlink from /var/www/w.  If you don't, you *will* break
  81 something.  You have been warned.
  82
  83 == Configuration ==
  84
  85 MediaWiki is configured using LocalSettings.php.  This is a PHP file that's
  86 generated when the user visits config/index.php to install the software, and
  87 which the user can edit by hand thereafter.  It's just a plain old PHP file,
  88 and can contain any PHP statements.  It usually sets global variables that are
  89 used for configuration, and includes files used by any extensions.
  90
  91 Distributors cannot easily add extra statements to the autogenerated
  92 LocalSettings.php at the present time -- although hacking config/index.php
  93 would work.  It would be nice if this situation could be improved.
  94
  95 Some configuration options that distributors might be in a position to set
  96 intelligently:
  97
  98   * $wgEmergencyContact: An e-mail address that can be used to contact the wiki
  99   administrator.  By default, "wikiadmin@$wgServerName".
 100   * $wgPasswordSender: The e-mail address to use when sending password e-mails.
 101   By default, "MediaWiki Mail <apache@$wgServerName>".
 102   * $wgSMTP: Can be configured to use SMTP for mail sending instead of PHP
 103   mail().
 104
 105 == Documentation ==
 106
 107 MediaWiki's official documentation is split between two places: the source
 108 code, and <http://www.mediawiki.org/>.  The source code documentation is written
 109 exclusively by developers, and so is likely to be reliable (at worst,
 110 outdated).  However, it can be pretty sparse.  mediawiki.org documentation is
 111 often much more thorough, but it's maintained by a wiki that's open to
 112 anonymous edits, so its quality is sometimes sketchy -- don't assume that
 113 anything there is officially endorsed!
 114
 115 == Upstream ==
 116
 117 MediaWiki is a project hosted and led by the Wikimedia Foundation, the
 118 not-for-profit charity that operates Wikipedia.  Wikimedia employs the lead
 119 developer and several other paid developers, but commit access is given out
 120 liberally and there are multiple very active volunteer developers as well.  A
 121 list of developers can be found at <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Developers>.
 122
 123 MediaWiki's bug tracker is at <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org>.  However, most
 124 developers follow the bug tracker little or not at all.  The best place to
 125 post if you want to get developers' attention is the wikitech-l mailing list
 126 <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l>.  Posts to wikitech-l
 127 will inevitably be read by multiple experienced MediaWiki developers.  There's
 128 also an active IRC chat at <irc://irc.freenode.net/mediawiki>, where there are
 129 usually several developers at reasonably busy times of day.
 130
 131 Unfortunately, we don't have a very good system for patch review.  Patches
 132 should be submitted on Bugzilla (as unified diffs produced with "svn diff"
 133 against the latest trunk revision), but many patches languish without review
 134 until they bitrot into uselessness.  You might want to get a developer to
 135 commit to reviewing your patch before you put too much effort into it.
 136 Reasonably straightforward patches shouldn't be too hard to get accepted if
 137 there's an interested developer, however -- posting to Bugzilla and then
 138 dropping a note on wikitech-l if nobody responds is a good tactic.
 139
 140 All redistributors of MediaWiki should be subscribed to mediawiki-announce
 141 <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce>.  It's
 142 extremely low-traffic, with an average of less than one post per month.  All
 143 new releases are announced here, including critical security updates.
 144
 145 == Useful software to install ==
 146
 147 There are several other pieces of software that MediaWiki can make good use of.
 148 Distributors might choose to install these automatically with MediaWiki and
 149 perhaps configure it to use them (see Configuration section of this document):
 150
 151   * APC (Alternative PHP Cache), XCache, or similar: Will greatly speed up the
 152   execution of MediaWiki, and all other PHP applications, at some cost in
 153   memory usage.  Will be used automatically for the most part.
 154   * clamav: Can be used for virus scanning of uploaded files.  Enable with
 155   "$wgAntivirus = 'clamav';".
 156   * DjVuLibre: Allows processing of DjVu files.  To enable this, set
 157   "$wgDjvuDump = 'djvudump'; $wgDjvuRenderer = 'ddjvu'; $wgDjvuTxt = 'djvutxt';".
 158   * HTML Tidy: Fixes errors in HTML at runtime.  Can be enabled with "$wgUseTidy
 159   = true;".
 160   * ImageMagick: For resizing images.  "$wgUseImageMagick = true;" will enable
 161   it.  PHP's GD can also be used, but ImageMagick is preferable.
 162   * Squid: Can provide a drastic speedup and a major cut in resource
 163   consumption, but enabling it may interfere with other applications.  It might
 164   be suitable for a separate mediawiki-squid package.  For setup details, see:
 165   <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Squid_caching>
 166   * rsvg or other SVG rasterizer: ImageMagick can be used for SVG support, but
 167   is not ideal.  Wikipedia (as of the time of this writing) uses rsvg.  To
 168   enable, set "$wgSVGConverter = 'rsvg';" (or other as appropriate).
 169   * texvc: Included with MediaWiki.  Instructions for compiling and
 170   installing it are in the math/ directory.
 171
 172 MediaWiki uses some standard GNU utilities as well, such as diff and diff3.  If
 173 these are present in /usr/bin or some other reasonable location, they will be
 174 used automatically.
 175
 176 MediaWiki also has a "job queue" that handles background processing.  Because
 177 shared hosts often don't provide access to cron, the job queue is run on every
 178 page view by default.  This means the background tasks aren't really done in
 179 the background.  Busy wikis can set $wgJobRunRate to 0 and run
 180 maintenance/runJobs.php periodically out of cron.  Distributors probably
 181 shouldn't set this up as a default, however, since the extra cron job is
 182 unnecessary overhead for a little-used wiki.
 183
 184 == Web server configuration ==
 185
 186 MediaWiki includes several .htaccess files to restrict access to some
 187 directories.  If the web server is not configured to support these files, and
 188 the relevant directories haven't been moved someplace inaccessible anyway (e.g.
 189 symlinked in /usr/share with the web server configured to not follow symlinks),
 190 then it might be useful to deny web access to those directories in the web
 191 server's configuration.