Manual:Moving a wiki

It's possible to move or duplicate a wiki running the MediaWiki software to another server. This is often needed when moving to a new web host or domain, or both.

Versions and upgrading
The instructions on this page should apply more or less evenly to any given version of MediaWiki. Ensure, prior to moving, that any upgrading of the software and database schema is done. You should avoid moving the database from an older version of the software into a newer version; this will not work.

Overview

 * 1) Back up the database
 * 2) Back up the MediaWiki files
 * 3) Re-create the database, user and permissions
 * 4) Import the database backup
 * 5) Import the MediaWiki files
 * 6) Check the configuration file
 * 7) Test

Back up the database
You need to back up the database in which MediaWiki stores its information, including pages, users, system messages, etc. This can be done using the MySQL backup or MySQL hot backup tools, or third-party administrative tools such as the popular phpMyAdmin.

Ensure that a complete dump of the entire database is made, including the schema structure and the data. Consult the documentation for the utilities you are using to find out how this is done. You should end up with a .sql script file.

Warning for MySQL 4.1 and later: In some common configurations, mysqldump can corrupt MediaWiki's stored text. If your database's charset is set to "latin1" rather than "UTF-8", mysqldump in 4.1+ will apply a charset conversion step which can corrupt text containing non-English characters as well as punctuation like "smart quotes" and long dashes used in English text.

You can see which charset your tables are set to with a command like SHOW CREATE TABLE text. The last line will include a 'DEFAULT CHARSET' bit.

Use the option --default-character-set=latin1 on the mysqldump command line to avoid the conversion if you find it set to "latin1".

Back up the MediaWiki files
The easiest method with which to back up the configuration, images, extensions and other customisations to the software is to back up the entire directory in which MediaWiki resides. You will probably want to place these in an archive for ease of transferring between servers, e.g. a tar or zip archive.

Re-create the database, user and permissions
On the destination server, create a new mySQL database and a user, and grant that user permissions on the database. SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE permissions should suffice. You may need to consult the mySQL documentation, your hosting provider's control panel documentation, or the documentation of any other utilities you are using for information on how to do this.

Note: It doesn't matter if the database doesn't have the same name; indeed, in a commercial hosting environment, where database names are usually prefixed with a hosting account username, a different database name is almost guaranteed. In addition, the username can differ, as can that user's password.

Import the database backup
The next step is to import the database backup you made earlier. This will create the tables in the database and populate them with data. Following this point, you will have a duplicate of the database on the other server. Again, according to the means you are using to manage your MySQL databases, the process for this varies. You may need to upload the .sql script file from earlier to your server via FTP, or this may be done for you by the utilities you are using. Consult the documentation to find out how it's done.

After importing, which takes a variable amount of time, depending upon the number of pages, users, edits, etc. in your wiki, you should have circa 20-25 tables in the new database.

Possible methods
Possible methods for performing the import include:


 * mysqldump
 * phpMyAdmin or a similar tool
 * The command-line console, mysql

Import the MediaWiki files
The final "large" step in the moving process is to upload/copy the MediaWiki files to the destination server. If you followed the instructions above, and backed up the entire directory, this will include the images and extensions directories, plus custom skins, etc. and the configuration file.

If you backed up only portions of the directory, e.g. images, extensions, etc. then you will need to first upload/copy a fresh install of the MediaWiki files, then transfer the backed-up directories and files into the correct locations in the new filesystem.

Check the configuration file
The final, real task is to tweak the file. Certain entries in this will almost undoubtedly require changing, and you may need to change the database connection information as well.

Check the following configuration options:

You might also need to check the paths to diff, ImageMagick, etc.

Test
At this point, attempt to access the wiki on the new server and use it. Log in as a sysop and a regular user and check that viewing, creating and editing pages and uploading files still works. You will need to fix any problems reported either by PHP or MediaWiki itself.