MediaWiki 1.3

MediaWiki 1.3 was the third public stable release of MediaWiki. This version is and therefore should not be installed on a new site. Wikis running version 1.3 should upgrade as soon as possible.

MediaWiki 1.3.18
(released 2005-11-02) MediaWiki 1.3.18 is a bugfix and security maintenance release. A change in PHP 4.4.1 broke handling of extension and  sections, causing garbage data to be inserted in output and saved edits. This version works around the change. This release includes further corrections to the inline CSS style sanitation which works around a JavaScript "feature" on Microsoft Internet Explorer. Users of Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows may be vulnerable to XSS injections on prior 1.3 releases; users of standards-compliant browsers are not vulnerable.

MediaWiki 1.3.17
(released 2005-10-05) MediaWiki 1.3.17 is a security maintenance release. Unsafe handling of CSS by Microsoft Internet Explorer could be exploited to produce cross-site scripting attacks by JavaScript injection to clients running that browser. This release blacklists several additional variants from use in HTML inline style attributes. All publicly accessible wikis are recommended to upgrade to reduce the risk to visitors using Microsoft web browsers.Note: the MediaWiki 1.3.x series is not compatible with PHP 5.0.5 or higher. Upgrade to the 1.5.0 release if you require this version of PHP 5.

MediaWiki 1.3.16
(released 2005-09-21) MediaWiki 1.3.16 is a security maintenance release. A bug in edit submission handling could cause corruption of the previous revision in the database if an abnormal URL was used, such as those used by some spambots. Affected releases: 1.5 release candidates are not affected by this problem. All publicly editable wikis are strongly recommended to upgrade immediately. 1.3 releases can be manually patched by changing this bit in : to:
 * 1.4.x <= 1.4.9; fixed in 1.4.10
 * 1.3.x <= 1.3.15; fixed in 1.3.16

MediaWiki 1.3.15, 2005-08-29
MediaWiki 1.3.15 is a security maintenance release. It corrects across-site scripting security bug:
 * tags were handled incorrectly when TeX rendering support is off, as in the default configuration. Wikis where the optional math support has been *enabled* are not vulnerable. The 1.3.x series is no longer maintained except for security fixes; new users and those seeking bug fixes should upgrade to 1.4.9 or 1.5.0.

Version 1.3.14, 2005-08-23
MediaWiki 1.3.14 is a security maintenance release. A flaw in the interaction between extensions and HTML attribute sanitization was discovered which could allow unauthorized use of offsite resources in style sheets, and possible exploitation of a JavaScript injection feature on Microsoft Internet Explorer. The 1.3.x series is no longer maintained except for security fixes; new users and those seeking bug fixes should upgrade to 1.4.8 or 1.5.0. Existing 1.3.x installations not willing to upgrade to the current stable release should apply the change manually: In includes/Parser.php, function fixTagAttributes add: If you are actively using extensions to generate HTML attribute values, upgrade to 1.4 or 1.5 for a more thorough fix.

Version 1.3.13, 2005-06-03
MediaWiki 1.3.13 is a security maintenance release. Incorrect handling of page template inclusions made it possible to inject JavaScript code into HTML attributes, which could lead to cross-site scripting attacks on a publicly editable wiki. Vulnerable releases and fix:
 * 1.5 prerelease: fixed in 1.5alpha2
 * 1.4 stable series: fixed in 1.4.5
 * 1.3 legacy series: fixed in 1.3.13
 * 1.2 series no longer supported; upgrade to 1.4.5 strongly recommended The 1.3.x series is no longer maintained except for security fixes; new users and those seeking general bug fixes should install 1.4.5. Existing 1.3.x installations not willing or able to upgrade to the current stable relase should update the installation to 1.3.13; only includes/Parser.php has changed from 1.3.12.

Version 1.3.12, 2005-02-20
MediaWiki 1.3.12 is a security maintenance release. A cross-site scripting injection vulnerability was discovered, which affects only MSIE clients and is only open if MediaWiki has been manually configured to run output through HTML Tidy ($wgUseTidy). The 1.3.x series is no longer maintained except for security fixes; new users and those seeking bug fixes should upgrade to 1.4.2. Existing 1.3.x installations using Tidy not willing to upgrade to the current stable relase should either turn off Tidy or update the installation to 1.3.12.

Version 1.3.11, 2005-02-20
MediaWiki 1.3.11 is a security release. A security audit found and fixed a number of problems. Users of MediaWiki 1.3.10 and earlier should upgrade to 1.3.11; users of 1.4 beta releases should upgrade to 1.4rc1.

Cross-site scripting vulnerability
XSS injection points can be used to hijack session and authentication cookies as well as more serious attacks. As of, per-user customized CSS and JavaScript is disabled by default as a general precaution. Sites which want this ability may set and  in LocalSettings.php.
 * Media: links output raw text into an attribute value, potentially abusable for JavaScript injection. This has been corrected.
 * Additional checks added to file upload to protect against MSIE and Safari MIME-type autodetection bugs.

Cross-site request forgery
An attacker could use JavaScript-submitted forms to perform various restricted actions by tricking an authenticated user into visiting a malicious web page. A fix for page editing in 1.3.10/1.4beta6 has been expanded in this release to other forms and functions. Authors of bot tools may need to update their code to include the additional fields.

Directory traversal
An unchecked parameter in image deletion could allow an authenticated administrator to delete arbitary files in directories writable by the web server, and confirm existence of files not deletable.

Version 1.3.10, 2005-02-03
MediaWiki 1.3.10 is a security release. An attacker could craft a URL which, when visited by a particular logged-in user, would execute arbitrary JavaScript code on the user's browser in the wiki's site context. This attack has been blocked, and as an extra precaution the user CSS and JavaScript subpage support is now disabled by default. Sites which want this ability may set and  in. Additional protections have been added against off-site form submissions hijacking user credentials. Authors of bot tools may need to update their code to include additional fields. All wikis running 1.3.x are strongly urged to upgrade to 1.3.10. Changes from 1.3.9:
 * Logged-in edits and preview of user CSS/JS are now locked to a session token.
 * Per-user CSS and JavaScript subpage customizations now disabled by default. They can be re-enabled via and.
 * Removed .ogg from the default uploads whitelist as an extra precaution. If your web server is configured to serve Ogg files with the correct Content-Type header, you can re-add it in LocalSettings.php:

Version 1.3.9, 2004-12-12
MediaWiki 1.3.9 is a security and bug fix release. A flaw in upload handling has been found which may allow upload and execution of arbitrary scripts with the permissions of the web server. Only wikis that have enabled uploads and have a vulnerable Apache configuration will be affected, but to be safe all wikis should upgrade. Wikis with uploads available should either disable uploads or upgrade to 1.3.9 immediately; if other files are customized and require merging changes, includes/ may be replaced individually to add the fix. (It is also recommended to configure your web server to disable script execution in the 'images' subdirectory where uploads are placed, which prevents most attacks even if the wiki fails.) Changes from 1.3.8:
 * Backported "Templates used in this page"-feature of EditPage
 * Allow "MySkin" as a default skin.
 * Parse namespaces correctly on self-interwiki links
 * fix broken Commons image link on Classic & Cologne Blue
 * Norsk language names for interwiki links changed, Nauruan language name changed
 * Enhance upload extension blacklist to protect against vulnerable Apache configurations

Version 1.3.8, 2004-11-15
MediaWiki 1.3.8 is a bugfix release. Those running wikis with uploads enabled are strongly recommended to upgrade as this fixes several problems with overwriting previously-uploaded files. Changes from 1.3.7:
 * fix array_key_exists warning for IIS servers using ISAPI mode
 * fix bad charset in (file) cached pages
 * use local numerals in category page (for Hindi et al)
 * alias month abbreviations to month names in Hindi
 * add localized numerals for Gujarati and Kannada
 * fix Category and project namespaces for Hindi
 * Don't output bogus timestamp on Special:RecentChanges if no entries
 * Correct template include path which broke some but not all Windows installs
 * Fix edit form submission problem with some PHP versions
 * Disallow unreachable titles with %XX hex codes
 * Allow page 0 to be renamed
 * when saving with, return to the anchor as with existing numbered section edits
 * Experimental shared upload overlay area (disabled by default)
 * Removed some "Wikipedia" hardcoding in German localization
 * User option localization fix for some extensions
 * now try to load the mysql php extension if it isn't loaded
 * fix error message in Special:Newpages RSS and Atom feeds
 * fix cache headers on anon talk page notification
 * added 'cgi' to
 * localize date and time format for Finnish
 * Don't overwrite images until the user confirms it

Version 1.3.7, 2004-10-18
Changes from 1.3.6:
 * Fix protected-page related security issue.

Version 1.3.6, 2004-10-14
Changes from 1.3.5:
 * Variables in user interface messages are no longer substituted at install time, so changes to the site name etc should be easier to make
 * Special:RecentChanges "changes from" link preserves limit
 * tooltip for "Undelete" tab now labeled correctly
 * unclickable "Move" tab no longer displays on protected pages
 * graceful deletion of images where the actual file is missing
 * fixed plurals in Catalan localization
 * Fixed potential HTML/JavaScript injection attack in the UnicodeConverter extension. (This extension is not enabled by default.)
 * Fixed potential HTML/JavaScript injection attack via raw page views to a maliciously crafted wiki page.
 * Fixed centered thumbnails, using instead of.
 * catch MySQL error 2000 during installation.
 * Removed misleading LocalSettings.sample
 * Fix cross site scripting bugs in Special:Ipblocklist, Special:EmailUser
 * Fix SQL injection and cross site scripting bugs in Special:Maintenance
 * Fix cross site scripting bugs and possible filename validation vulnerability in ImagePage.
 * and more of that sort

Version 1.3.5, 2004-09-30
Changes from 1.3.4:
 * Clean up input validation in 'raw' page output mode which was a potential cross-site scripting opportunity.

SECURITY NOTE
As of 1.3.4, MediaWiki performs some screening of newly uploaded files for validity. (Some) corrupt image files, and HTML files mistakenly or maliciously masquerading as images, should now be rejected. These checks protect against Internet Explorer security holes relating to type autodetection which are a potential cross-site scripting attack vector, and also rejects at least one known version of the "JPEG virus" which might attack unpatched clients. If you already have invalid files uploaded this will not protect against them. If you have expanded the  whitelist or disabled the strict type checking, other dangerous file types may still get through. You should always be careful when allowing uploads! Changes from 1.3.3:
 * Fixed lots of template-related bugs, esp. for cases where template variables are used for links, images, etc.
 * Fixed transformation of page messages when viewing Special:Allmessages
 * Handle "ISBN ISBN 1234" correctly
 * Fixed warning on Category pages
 * Fixed some bad error messages on login page
 * Fixed history entry for initial main page on install
 * Removed problematic  and   from legal title characters
 * Strip leading blank from output in preformatted text.
 * Fixed problem when moving pages to titles with '#' in
 * Optional for raw  sections. Use only on limited- participation 'trusted' wikis, as it does not protect against cross-site scripting attacks. For security, this option can only be enabled if in  mode.
 * Fixed problem where pages which were created as a redirect following a move never showed on Special:Randompage.
 * Fixed line spacing on printed table of contents
 * Allow links to pages with names of the form RFC 1234
 * Fixed broken edit links being shown for sections from included templates
 * Verify that uploaded image files are of the claimed type.

Version 1.3.3, 2004-09-09
Changes from 1.3.2:
 * Fix for long numeric page titles
 * Fix Go search for "0", numeric almost-self-links
 * Avoid caching of pages with "You have new messages" headers
 * Fix for upgrades as non-root users from 1.2 command-line installs.
 * Fix for debug mode.
 * setting for configuring additional namespaces (see note in )
 * 'recache' on query pages now disabled when miser mode is on; special case the global settings in your to do automatic updates.
 * Don't block UTF-8 titles containing byte 0xA0 (bug added in 1.3.2)
 * Watch/unwatch tabs now shown on edit pages in MonoBook.
 * Fix default skin in Irish localization (ga)
 * Add Traditional Chinese localization (zh-tw)
 * Changed default sortkey of subcategories. Don't include "Category:"-prefix any longer
 * More helpful info on spam catcher.
 * Allow larger offsets for queries such as Special:Listusers
 * Semicolon added to French non-break space rules
 * Possible fix for some install errors with path names permission problems.
 * Removed Project:All system messages, which has been superseded by the much faster Special:Allmessages. This speeds up installation considerably.

Version 1.3.2, 2004-08-30
Changes from 1.3.1:
 * Fix namespaced page creation links when no go match
 * When cookies are disabled, don't show login screen twice
 * Install should no longer die when PHP is pre-configured to compress output
 * Fixed bug that caused long Japanese pages to time out with Tidy active
 * When session.handler is set incorrectly, try automatic override to 'files'
 * Watch/Unwatch links back to the affected page instead of Main Page
 * Upload link no longer displayed on Monobook if uploading is disabled
 * Special:Allmessages faster, shows correct original text, works in safe mode

Version 1.3.1, 2004-08-14
Changes from 1.3.0:
 * Watchlist parameters now work with register_globals off
 * Fixed parsing of italics and bold mark-up (again)
 * Special:Allpages display is more sensible on smaller wikis
 * Fixed XHTML parsing error in classic skins
 * Moved pages update watchlist correctly
 * Fixed rebuildall.php on case-sensitive Unix filesystems
 * Disabled file cache compression by default due to incompatibility with output buffer compression (ob_gzhandler)
 * New magic word PAGENAMEE (URL-escaped version of PAGENAME)
 * Installation avoids blank username; better message on missing XML module
 * no longer breaks all logins.

Version 1.3.0, 2004-08-11
Look & layout: Wiki features: Editing: Metadata and output: Optional modules: Installation and upgrading: Database: Code and compatibility:
 * New default layout 'MonoBook' (available on PHP4 only currently)
 * Print stylesheet now built-in to every page
 * More or less correct XHTML 1.0 (served as text/html by default)
 * Image captions can now include links and other basic formatting
 * Image bounding box can be specified instead of width, e.g. as 100x100px, making the image not wider than 100px and not higher than 100px, keeping aspect ratio.
 * Templates have been expanded with parameters, and separated from the MediaWiki: localization scheme.
 * Categories more or less work
 * added a special page for listing users with sysop rights.
 * Automatic merging of edit conflicts that don't directly interfere
 * Edit summaries can now include basic formatting and links
 * Linked Creative Commons copyright metadata (optional)
 * RSS 2.0 & Atom 0.3 feeds for Recent Changes, New Pages
 * WikiHiero hieroglyphic module can be added (separate download)
 * Timeline module can be added (separate download). Requires ploticus.
 * TeX now has an experimental MathML output mode (incomplete!)
 * The old install.php and update.php have been removed. In-place installation introduced in 1.2 is now the standard installation and upgrade method, see INSTALL and UPGRADE for directions.
 * The links table has been changed to use a cur_id for l_from. The link tables must be converted on upgrade, which may entail some downtime.
 * Should now run clean with error reporting set to E_ALL.
 * register_globals hack from 1.2 has been replaced with safer code
 * Bundled PHPTAL 0.7.0 from http://phptal.sourceforge.net/ (with some patches)
 * Most image-related code moved to Image.php
 * More fixes for PHP 4.1.2 (thanks to Asheesh Laroia)
 * URL encoding fix for anchors
 * All languages now available in UTF-8 mode
 * Various other fixes

Caveats
Some output, particularly involving user-supplied inline HTML, may not produce 100% valid or well-formed XHTML output. Testers are welcome to set $wgMimeType = "application/xhtml+xml"; to test for remaining problem cases, but this is not recommended on live sites. (This must be set for MathML to display properly in Mozilla.) The new 'MonoBook' skin is not compatible with PHP 5 due to bugs in the underlying PHPTAL library. It will be automatically disabled when running on PHP5; the older look and feel will be used instead. For notes on 1.2.x and older releases, see HISTORY.

Online documentation
Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is currently being built up on Meta-Wikipedia, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation License: http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents

Mailing list
A MediaWiki-l mailing list has been set up distinct from the Wikipedia wikitech-l list: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l

IRC help
There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net

Bugzilla
Please report bugs at http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/