Manual:$wgAllowSchemaUpdates

Performance hacks and limits: $wgAllowSchemaUpdates
Allow database schema updates to be executed with update.php script.
Introduced in version:	1.18.1 (r101867)
Removed in version:	Still in use
Allowed values:	(boolean)
Default value:	true
Other settings: Alphabetical | By function

Details

Enable/disable upgrading via update.php. If this is set to false, the script must be run with --force to execute schema updates.

On very large wikis with multiple database servers, updates can cause downtime if done incorrectly and are usually done manually with special processes. This setting is used to prevent people accidentally using the script on wikis where it is not an appropriate way to update MediaWiki (such as Wikipedia).

See also

• phabricator:T31558 - related technical discussion