Manual:Upgrading/de-formal

From mediawiki.org
This page is a translated version of the page Manual:Upgrading and the translation is 36% complete.
Outdated translations are marked like this.

Übersicht

Dateiübertragung

Eine Methode zur Übertragung der Dateien auswählen:

Vorbereitung

Lesen Sie die UPGRADE Textdatei, die in MediaWiki enthalten ist.

  1. Überprüfen Sie die Voraussetzungen
  2. Lesen Sie die RELEASE-NOTES-Datei
  3. Lesen Sie die UPGRADE-Datei
  4. Sichern Sie die vorhandenen Dateien und die Datenbank
  5. Entpacken Sie die neuen Dateien
  6. Aktualisierung der Erweiterungen
  7. Starten Sie das Update-Skript, um die Datenbank zu überprüfen.
  8. Testen Sie das Update.
  9. Entfernen der Überreste der alten Installationen

Überprüfen Sie die Anforderungen

Warning Warning: MediaWiki from 1.32 to 1.35.4, 1.36.2, 1.37.0 contain a security issue that allow unprivileged editing of arbitrary page and arbitrary JavaScript execution. If you are using one of these versions and can not upgrade to a newer version, please see 2021-12 security release/FAQ for a workaround.
Warning Warning: Do not upgrade from a MediaWiki version older than 1.33 to MediaWiki 1.39.1, or you may lose data! Upgrade to MediaWiki 1.35 first. See task T326071.

MediaWiki 1.41 erfordert:

  • PHP 7.4.3+
  • Eines der folgenden:
    • MariaDB 10.3.0+
    • MySQL 5.7.0+
    • PostgreSQL 10.0+
    • SQLite 3.8.0+
Since Version 1.36, MediaWiki only commits to supporting upgrades from two LTS releases ago (see phab:T259771). Upgrades from older versions of MediaWiki will have to be performed in multiple steps. This means that if you want to upgrade to 1.41 from 1.34 or earlier, you'll first have to upgrade your 1.34 wiki to 1.35 (or 1.39), and, from 1.35 (or 1.39), you'll be able to upgrade to 1.41.

Wenn Sie PostgreSQL benutzen, lesen Sie bitte auch Manual:Upgrading Postgres .

Für weitere Informationen lesen Sie bitte Handbuch:Installationsvoraussetzungen und Compatibility .

Lesen Sie die Versionshinweise

In der "Tarball-Distribution" (der .tar-Paket-Datei) oder unter den von Git ausgecheckten/exportierten Dateien gibt es eine Reihe von Dateien mit Großbuchstaben in den Dateinamen, von denen eine die RELEASE-NOTES (wiki) enthält. Öffnen Sie diese jetzt und finden Sie heraus, was in diesem Release geändert wurde. Auch die Anweisungen in der UPGRADE-Datei sollten beachtet werden.

Ausstehende Aufträge löschen

Aus Performance-Gründen verzögern sich einige Aktionen in der Datenbank und werden vom job queue verwaltet. Diese Aufträge werden in der Datenbank gespeichert und enthalten Parameter mit Informationen über Aktionen, die sie ausführen sollen. Es wird dringend empfohlen, diese ausstehenden Jobs vor dem Upgrade des Wikis auszuführen, um zu vermeiden, dass sie fehlschlagen, falls sich die Parameterspezifikation dieser Jobs mit der neuen Version ändert. Verwenden Sie runJobs.php , um alle ausstehenden Aufträge auszuführen und die Warteschlange zu löschen, bevor Sie das Upgrade durchführen.

Sichern vorhandener Dateien und der Datenbank

Vollständige Anleitung: Manual:Backing up a wiki

Während die Upgrade-Skripte gut in Stand gehalten und robust sind, können dennoch Dinge schief gehen. Bevor Sie das Datenbank-Schema aktualisieren, ""machen Sie ein vollständiges Backup"" Ihres Wiki, inklusive der Datenbank und den Dateien:

  • der Inhalt deines Wikis, von der Datenbank (stellen Sie sicher, den richtigen Zeichensatz zu haben, überprüfen Sie dies zuerst in der LocalSettings.php). Es wäre auch gut, zu dem SQL-Datenbank-Dump zusätzlich einen XML-Dump zu erstellen.
  • Bei MySQL ist für einen SQL- bzw. XML-Dump der mysql Befehl zu verwenden:
mysqldump --user=wikidb_user --password=wikidb_userpassword wikidb > file.sql
mysqldump --user=wikidb_user --password=wikidb_userpassword wikidb --xml > file.xml
  • Bei PostgreSQL ist für einen Datenbank-Dump der pg_restore Befehl zu verwenden:
pg_dump --create -Fc wikidb > file.db.dump
  • Bei SQLite gibt es ein MediaWiki Skript um ein Backup zu erstellen:
php wikifolder/maintenance/sqlite.php --backup-to file
  • Bilder und andere Mediendateien (der Inhalt des images Verzeichnis, benutzerdefiniertes Logo /skins/common/images/wiki.png)
  • Konfigurationsdateien, bspw LocalSettings.php und .htaccess (wenn vorhanden)
  • MediaWikis Programmdateien, inklusive allen Benutzeroberflächen (Skins) und Erweiterungen (Extensions), besonders wenn Sie diese modifiziert haben.

Neue Dateien entpacken

Verwendung eines Tarball-Paketes

Sie können die neuen Dateien via FTP oder Befehlszeile einfügen. Nutzen Sie die Befehlszeile, wenn Sie dazu Zugang haben! Die Befehlszeile zu verwenden ist viel schneller, als jede einzelne Datei der Tausenden via FTP hochzuladen.

Sie sollten den entpackten tarball in ein neues und leeres Verzeichnis auf dem Server ablegen. Wenn Sie den tarball stattdessen direkt in die bestehende alte Version entpacken, sollten Sie die Anweisungen auf der Seite Back up existing files and the database beachten. Andernfalls, falls Sie irgendwelche Anpassungen vorgenommen haben, werden diese so überschrieben, dass keine Möglichkeit mehr bleibt, diese wieder herzustellen. Wenn Sie dazu die neue Version direkt über die bestehende entpacken, können Dateien zurückbleiben, welche die neue Version beim Aktualisieren beeinflussen. Es ist daher empfehlenswert, die Dateien in einem neuen Verzeichnis zu entpacken und die Anpassungen im neuen Verzeichnis vorzunehmen (LocalSettings.php, Bildverzeichnis, Erweiterungen und andere Anpassungen wie eigene Skins).

FTP oder grafisch

Falls kein Kommandozeilen-Zugriff auf den Server möglich ist, kann das MediaWiki tarball Archiv lokal auf einen Computer heruntergladen und mittels 7zip entpackt werden.

Nachdem alle Dateien und Ordner lokal entpackt wurden, können sie mit einem beliebigen FTP Programm auf den Server hoch geladen werden.

cPanel File Manager

cPanel is a popular interface provided by many web hosts. This method is efficient because the files are uncompressed on the server itself.

  • Navigate to the directory that holds your wiki folder.
  • Upload the mediawiki-1.xx.x.tar.gz file. You may need to hit "Reload" to see it.
  • Extract the mediawiki-1.xx.x.tar.gz file. Reload again.
  • Confirm that the mediawiki-1.xx.x folder is present.
  • Delete the tar.gz file.
  • Copy all necessary skins, extensions, image folders, customizations, and the LocalSettings.php into the new folder. (See below.)
  • When you are ready to run update.php, rename your old wiki folder and your new wiki folder. (e.g. "w" becomes "w1.34" and then "mediawiki1.35.0" becomes "w".) This step is easily reversible if you run into problems.

Kommandozeile

Unter Umständen kann es nötig sein, das Kommando als sudo auszuführen, falls der aktuelle Benutzer auf den wiki Installationsverzeichnissen keine vollständigen Schreibrechte haben sollte. Beim enttarren (entpacken) eines tarball Pakets wird normalerweise ein neues Verzeichnis für die neue wiki Version erstellt. Danach müssen die die alten Konfigurationsdateien und das image Verzeichnis, in dem sich Bilder befinden, aus dem alten, vorherigen Installationsordner in den neuen kopiert werden:

cd /path/to/your/new/installation/ wget https://releases.wikimedia.org/mediawiki/1.41/mediawiki-1.41.0.tar.gz tar xvzf mediawiki-1.41.0.tar.gz rm mediawiki-1.41.0.tar.gz

(Open)Solaris Benutzer sollten gtar benutzen, oder:

$ gzip -dc mediawiki-1.41.0.tar.gz | tar xf -

Andere Dateien

Nach dem entpacken das tarball Archivs, sollten einige Dateien und Ordner aus dem alten Installationsverzeichnis in das neue kopiert oder verschoben werden:

  • LocalSettings.php - enthält Ihre alten Konfigurationseinstellungen.
  • Das images (oder uploads in älteren Versionen) Verzeichnis, das alle ins Wiki hochgeladenen Dateien enthält, es sei denn es wurde ein anderes Uploadverzeichnis ausgewählt. Die Zugriffsrechte (Permissions) und der Besitzer (Ownership) müssen geändert werden. find ./images -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \; und chgrp -R apache images (beispielweise falls der web user "apache" ist).
  • Einige Erweiterungen im extensions Verzeichnis. Es sollten immer die aktuellen Erweiterungen installiert und verwendet werden, veraltete Erweiterungen funktionieren eventuell nicht korrekt oder gar nicht mit einer neueren MediaWiki-Version.
  • Falls ein benutzerdefiniertes Logo verwendet wird, muss diese Datei ebenfalls aus der Sicherungsdatei wiederherstellt werden. In Versionen vor 1.24 befindet es sich normalerweise im Verzeichnis skins/common/images/. Ab Version 1.24 im Verzeichnis resources/assets/ oder images/, je nach dem welches zur Verwendung ausgewählt wurde. Danach dies in der LocalSettings.php hinzufügen, zum Beispiel $wgLogo = "$wgScriptPath/images/logo.png";
  • Bei 1.35 müssen die Logos ggf. aus wgLogos wiederhergestellt werden. Dann ist beispielsweise folgendes zur LocalSettings.php hinzuzufügen: $logo4
  • benutzerdefinierte Skins aus dem skins-Verzeichnis
  • jede Veränderung, die in den alten Installationsdateien oder Erweiterungen durchgeführt wurde.
  • jede .htaccess Datei (falls Apache verwendet wird und irgendwelche Regeln in der .htaccess eingetragen wurden).

Machen Sie diesen neuen Ordner zum veröffentlichten Ordner auf dem Webserver, oder benennen Sie das alte Installationsverzeichnis um und benennen Sie dann das neue um, um den alten Namen zu erhalten. Change ownership and group of everything so the web server has access to the files.

Git verwenden

Wenn Sie Git verwenden, exportieren Sie die Dateien an einen sauberen Speicherort und kopieren Sie dann die alten benutzerdefinierten Dateien wie im vorherigen Abschnitt beschrieben an den neuen Speicherort.

Sie müssen auch einige externe PHP-Bibliotheken mit Composer oder einer bereitgestellten Sammlung installieren, die für die Wikimedia Wiki-Farm gepflegt wird. Weitere Details zur Installation und Aktualisierung externer Bibliotheken finden Sie in der Git-Download-Dokumentation.

Verwendung eines Patches

Eine kleine Patchdatei wird in der Regel für ein Minor-Versions-Upgrade zur Verfügung gestellt. Sie müssen patch manuell herunterladen, um dies verwenden zu können. Nach dem manuellen Download von der Dumps-Seite extrahieren Sie sie oder folgen Sie den Anweisungen mit wget unten. Patches sind inkrementell, Sie können keine Version überspringen.

  1. cd in Ihr Hauptverzeichnis von MediaWiki (das mit LocalSettings.php).
  2. Laden Sie die Patchdatei herunter und entpacken Sie sie mit gunzip.
  3. Verwenden Sie patch -p1 --dry-run, um zu überprüfen, was geändert wird (z.B.', patch -p1 --dry-run -i mediawiki-x.xx.x.patch).
  4. Wenn alles in Ordnung ist, führen Sie patch erneut ohne --dry-run aus.
  5. Überprüfen Sie Ihre Special:Version und Sie sollten die neue Versionsnummer sehen.

Verbliebene Dateien, die Fehler verursachen können

Wenn die neue Version in eine altes, bestehendes Installationsverzeichnis entpackt wurde, können einige alte Dateien Probleme mit der neuen Version verursachen.

Erweiterungen aktualisieren

Einige Erweiterungen wurden angepasst, um mit der neuen Version der MediaWiki-Software arbeiten zu können. Stellen Sie sicher, dass Sie die jeweils aktuelle Version verwenden. Eventuell müssen sie Updates für spezifische Erweiterungen manuell einspielen.

Verschiedene Tarball-Pakete enthalten Untergruppen von Erweiterungen mit eigener Versionierung, die dabei helfen, die passende Version für das vorhandene MediaWiki-Kern-Release zu finden.

Extension Distributor works well for most people who want a snapshot of extensions that will work with their supported versions of MediaWiki.

If you want a lot of extensions then downloading from Git is probably best. If you don't have Git but you want to upgrade a lot of extensions, you might consider using mwExtUpgrader.

Ihre LocalSettings.php anpassen

If you use the same LocalSettings.php from the old version, you may need to adapt it to how new versions handle it:

Skin registration

MediaWiki Version:
1.24

Since MediaWiki 1.24, bundled skins like Vector, Monobook, Modern and CologneBlue are no longer part of MediaWiki core, and they need to be registered explicitly in LocalSettings.php to use them, otherwise MediaWiki will warn that you don't have installed skins.

This is what you need to add to LocalSettings.php when upgrading from versions older than 1.24 and want to have available one of those skins:

wfLoadSkin( 'Vector' );
wfLoadSkin( 'MonoBook' );
wfLoadSkin( 'Modern' );
wfLoadSkin( 'CologneBlue' );

Other skins may still not be adapted to the new skin registration system, so refer to the documentation page about each skin to see how to register it properly in case of problems.

Extension registration

MediaWiki Version:
1.25

Since MediaWiki 1.25, extensions use a new extension registration system.

Previously your LocalSettings.php would include something like:

require_once "$IP/extensions/Cite/Cite.php";
require_once "$IP/extensions/Gadgets/Gadgets.php";
require_once "$IP/extensions/ImageMap/ImageMap.php";
require_once "$IP/extensions/InputBox/InputBox.php";
require_once "$IP/extensions/Nuke/Nuke.php";
require_once "$IP/extensions/ParserFunctions/ParserFunctions.php";
require_once "$IP/extensions/Poem/Poem.php";
require_once "$IP/extensions/SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi/SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi.php";
require_once "$IP/extensions/WikiEditor/WikiEditor.php";

This can be converted to:

wfLoadExtension( 'Cite' );
wfLoadExtension( 'Gadgets' );
wfLoadExtension( 'ImageMap' );
wfLoadExtension( 'InputBox' );
wfLoadExtension( 'Nuke' );
wfLoadExtension( 'ParserFunctions' );
wfLoadExtension( 'Poem' );
wfLoadExtension( 'SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi' );
wfLoadExtension( 'WikiEditor' );

Extensions are being adapted to use the new extension registration system. Extensions that are not adapted should use the old way of installing them. Refer to the installation instructions on the extension's page for more information.

Remove DefaultSettings.php line (if necessary)

Older versions of MediaWiki automatically generated a line in LocalSettings.php calling DefaultSettings.php . As of Version 1.38, this line is deprecated and does not work with many extensions. It needs to be removed.

Delete the following line:

require_once( "$IP/includes/DefaultSettings.php" );

Other variables

Some variables may be obsolete or even removed. Having them in LocalSettings.php usually won't have any effect. New variables may be added in newer versions, or some existing variables changed their type. We usually try to use sane defaults for them, and in case of type change, be backward compatible. In any case, take a look at the release notes to see those changes.

Run the update script

You can upgrade the MediaWiki database in two ways: Either from the command line or from the web browser. If you have shell access to your server, upgrading from the command line is recommended, since this reduces the risk of the upgrade process being interrupted by a timeout or connection reset.

The script will also notify you if any of MediaWiki core's PHP dependencies are out of date.

Command line

Access the command line of your server or an SSH shell or similar. You can access the command line by connecting to your server via SSH. If the local PC you are working on runs Microsoft Windows, you will need a tool like PuTTY to use SSH. From the command line or the Shell, execute the update script:

MediaWiki Version:
1.40
$ php maintenance/run.php update.php
MediaWiki Version:
1.39
$ php maintenance/update.php

On a Linux server if you get an error, try performing the same command as root (by using the sudo command). Note for simple installations on Windows (e.g. with XAMPP ): First make sure that your web server (such as Apache) and your database (such as MySQL) are running. Then run update.php: right-click it, select Open With, and browse to PHP.exe. The resulting command prompt window will likely autoclose when the schema upgrade completes.

MediaWiki will inspect the existing schema and update it to work with the new code, adding tables and columns as needed.

If you use a Shared database, you should pass the --doshared parameter if you want the shared tables to be updated. Otherwise, they won't be touched by the update script.

What to do if it says "MediaWiki requires PHP x.y.z or higher; you are using PHP x.w.v"

See Manual:Common errors and symptoms#MediaWiki requires PHP 7.4.3 or higher; you are using PHP 7.3.17

What to do if php update.php fails to do anything, resulting in a quick pause and then return to command prompt

This can be caused by a malfunctioning extension or skin.

  • Check that all extensions and skins called for in LocalSettings.php are present
  • Check that extensions are using the correct registration method (wfLoadExtension vs. require_once)
  • Comment out the first half of the extensions in LocalSettings.php.

If this causes update.php to work, uncomment half of that half (so 1/4 of the extensions). If this does NOT cause update.php to work, uncomment the first half but comment out the second half, and then comment out half of the second half, etc. Repeat until update.php works to find the one that is failing.

What to do in case of "ALTER command denied to user" error (or similar)

In case the scripts abort with a message similar to:

Error: 1142 ALTER command denied to user 'wiki'@'localhost' for table 'mytable' (localhost)
ERROR: must be the owner of the mytable relation 

This means that you should check that you have defined $wgDBadminuser and $wgDBadminpassword in your LocalSettings.php file (in the main directory). These are the user and password needed by this script in order to access to the database.

In some cases, an old $wgDBmwschema variable (for Postgres) seems to be read for the table name to update instead of $wgDBname, even when MySQL is used. If this is the case, just get rid of the $wgDBmwschema definition in LocalSettings.php.

What to do in case of 'register_argc_argv is set to false' error

You may encounter the error:

Cannot get command line arguments, register_argc_argv is set to false
  1. Go to ~/maintenance. Either edit an existing 'php.ini' file, or create one.
  1. Add a line as follows:
register_argc_argv=true
  1. Re-run php update.php

Web browser

MediaWiki Version:
1.17
See also update.php

If your database is already big and in high production usage, then you should not be using the Web updater, e.g. because the update process will time out when the maximum_execution_time is reached. In that case you should use update.php from the command-line interface (not from the web). What exactly is "too big" depends on your server (e.g. on its performance, the load and on how long the maximum execution time of PHP allows the script to run). If your wiki is too big for the web updater and your hosting provider does not allow command-line access, then you need to migrate your wiki to another hosting account, preferably to one that does have shell access.

  1. Always back up before performing database maintenance.
  1. Navigate your web browser to /mw-config/index.php.

For example, if your wiki is at http://example.org/w/index.php, then navigate to http://example.org/w/mw-config/index.php.

  1. Select your language and click continue.
  1. The existing installation should be detected. Follow the instructions on the screen to upgrade it.
    If asked for the "upgrade key", open your LocalSettings.php file and look for the key assigned to $wgUpgradeKey .

It might happen that the web-updater does not seem to work: Instead of seeing the initial language selection screen, you might see an empty wiki page, possibly with some error message. In this case it is most likely that your web server uses Rewrite Rules (most likely for short URLs), which do not show you the updater at mw-config/, but a wiki page at Mw-config/, with capital "M". In this case, rename the .htaccess file for the time of the update. Then you should be able to access the web-updater.

Warning Warning: If you use this method, make sure to change the name of the .htaccess file back after running the upgrade script! Otherwise, short URLs and possibly other stuff will be broken!


Test the update

Once the upgrade has been completed, browse to the wiki and check that the following operations work as expected:

  • Viewing pages
  • Editing pages
  • Uploading a file
  • Visit Special:Version and check that the version shown is correct and that the extensions are present.

Remove leftovers from old installations

If you have copied your previous installation to another folder on the server, be sure to remove it or make it completely inaccessible from the web. It is very important to not leave old installations accessible from the web, since it completely defeats the purpose of upgrading, and leaves your server open to attacks.

Frequently asked questions

How hard is it to upgrade?

If the only file you have modified is LocalSettings.php , and you are upgrading from 1.5 or later, the process is very simple. The amount of human work involved is only a few minutes. The database schema changes will take an amount of time proportional to the size of your database — potentially hours for wikis with millions of pages, but for a more typical size of a few thousand pages, it is usually done in seconds.

Minor upgrades, within the same major version, say from 1.40.0 to 1.40.2, do not require any schema changes at all. You can just update the files. The database needs no update, hence it is not necessary to run the updater script.

Upgrading from 1.4 or earlier is potentially complicated because support for character sets other than UTF-8 was dropped, and the schema for storing bulk text changed. Please read the relevant section in the UPGRADE file.

Upgrading becomes difficult if you have modified our source code, and you don't want your changes to be overwritten. Tools such as diff, patch, Meld or WinMerge may be useful. There is also potential for trouble if you are using unmaintained extensions. Upgrade your extensions at the same time as you upgrade MediaWiki.

If you have modified the skin or use a custom skin, you very likely will have to adjust it to work again with the new version of MediaWiki.

Instead of patching your "global" CSS and JS (JavaScript) files every time, you can simply add the code to your MediaWiki:Common.js and MediaWiki:Common.css pages. As these are part of the database which will be reused when you upgrade, you will not have to patch the MediaWiki core files any more.

How do I upgrade from a really old version? In one step, or in several steps?

MediaWiki Version:
1.4

It depends: If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.4 or older, you should upgrade to MediaWiki 1.5 first. If you are upgrading from a Latin-1 wiki, use upgrade1_5.php (found in MediaWiki 1.5) to convert the relevant parts of the database to UTF-8 ($wgUseLatin1 needs to be set to true in your LocalSettings.php for this to work). Next, run update.php, and then set the $wgLegacyEncoding option in LocalSettings.php to the encoding previously used by the wiki (e.g. windows-1252). This is basically how Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation sites were upgraded from MediaWiki 1.4 to 1.5 – see some related notes at Wikitech. You may need to upgrade to MediaWiki 1.4 before running the upgrade1.5 script. If you want to make a database dump (e.g. MySQL) of your Latin-1 wiki, make sure the type of the old_text field in the text table is mediumblob, not mediumtext, to avoid character encoding issues.

MediaWiki Versions:
1.5 – 1.35

If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.5 or newer to 1.35, you can upgrade in one step, from your old version to the latest stable version. The vast majority of reports, as well as automated testing, indicate that doing it in one step works just fine. If you have trouble believing this, read this mailing list post. However, please note that when you update from old versions, chances that you will encounter PHP errors are bigger than when you upgrade from the version directly previous to the new version. You would have received these errors anyway, had you not skipped versions, but the errors would have been associated with each individual update. Instead, if you update several versions at once, you'll get the same set of errors all at the same time. This will make the upgrade more difficult, but do not forget that you did not have the trouble of updating to the intermediate versions, which you skipped!

MediaWiki Version:
1.35

If you are upgrading to MediaWiki 1.36 or later, only upgrades from the last two LTS releases will be supported (phab:T259771). This will mean that for very old versions, that you first upgrade to MediaWiki 1.35 and then upgrade to 1.36.

Should I back up first?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: It depends on a) how much you value your data, b) how hard it is to create a backup and c) how confident you are with MySQL maintenance and administration.

An upgrade failure may leave your database in an inconsistent state, in between two versions. A PHP or MySQL error might happen during upgrade leaving your database partly upgraded. In such situations it may be possible to somehow fix this problem with much manual work. However, it will be way easier to just put a database backup from before running update.php in place and to continue with that. Otherwise you might have hours of - needless - work.

Recovery is often complex. Volunteers on the support forums are unlikely to be impressed if you neglect to make a backup and then need help to recover from upgrade-related corruption. A better outcome is if you can revert to your backup, and then report the bug against the corresponding MediaWiki project in the upgrade process which caused the corruption.

Can I keep my LocalSettings.php?

Yes, but you may have to make some minor changes. The format of LocalSettings.php is largely backward compatible. Changes which break LocalSettings.php compatibility will be documented in the "configuration changes" section of the release notes.

Can my wiki stay online while it is upgrading?

Generally yes, however if you upgrade via Git, Git may temporarily (for a few seconds) break it.

If you are upgrading between minor releases of MediaWiki, all you need to do is update the source files.

Note: the following assumes you have command line access. If you are upgrading between major releases of MediaWiki, the preferred procedure is as follows:

  1. Unpack the new version of MediaWiki into a new directory
  1. Prepare that new directory: copy your current LocalSettings.php from the old directory, copy any installed extensions and custom skins (if any). Check $wgLogo and $wgLogos settings in LocalSettings.php and if necessary copy logo file from the old directory to the new directory.
  1. In the release notes for the new version, see if any changes need to be made to LocalSettings.php.
  1. In the old directory, edit LocalSettings.php and insert the following code. This will place the database in read-only mode for regular wiki activity, without restricting your own update actions. Users will see the message provided if they attempt an edit during the upgrade process:
    $adminTask = ( PHP_SAPI === 'cli' || defined( 'MEDIAWIKI_INSTALL' ) );
    $wgReadOnly = $adminTask ? false : 'Upgrading to MediaWiki 1.41.0';
  1. Run the update script or the web updater in the new directory.
  1. Copy the images from the images sub-directory from the old directory to the new directory.
  1. Swap the old directory and the new directory.

(This will make the database writable again, because $wgReadOnly was only set in the old directory's LocalSettings.php.)

Why upgrade?

Subscribe to mediawiki-announce to be notified of new releases.

Recent releases receive security fixes to keep your wiki and your host safe from vandals, while old releases don't (see Version lifecycle ).

New major releases come with new features, which you might want to use: see the release notes for details.


See also