Manual:Sites table

Manual:Contents MediaWiki database layout sites table
MediaWiki version:
1.21

The sites table, introduced in MediaWiki 1.21 in May 2013, holds all the sites known to the wiki.

Fields

site_id

MediaWiki version:
1.21

Numeric ID of the site. This is an auto-incrementing primary key.

site_global_key

MediaWiki version:
1.21

Global identifier for the site, ie 'enwiktionary'

site_type

MediaWiki version:
1.21

Type of the site, ie 'mediawiki'

site_group

MediaWiki version:
1.21

Group of the site, ie 'wikipedia'

site_source

MediaWiki version:
1.21

Source of the site data, ie 'local', 'wikidata', 'my-magical-repo'

site_language

MediaWiki version:
1.21

Language code of the sites primary language.

site_protocol

MediaWiki version:
1.21

Protocol of the site, i.e. 'http://', 'irc://', '//'.

This field is an index for lookups and is built from type specific data in site_data.

site_domain

MediaWiki version:
1.21

Domain of the site in reverse order, ie 'gro.ikiwaidem.www.'.

This field is an index for lookups and is built from type specific data in site_data.

site_data

MediaWiki version:
1.21

Type dependent site data.

site_forward

MediaWiki version:
1.21

If site.tld/path/key:pageTitle should forward users to the page on the actual site, where "key" is the local identifier.

site_config

MediaWiki version:
1.21

Type dependent site config. For instance if template transclusion should be allowed if it's a MediaWiki.

Managing the sites table

The sites table is shipped without data for a new MediaWiki installation.

Importing sites table from another wiki

There're two ways of populating the sites table using another wiki as a source. If you have access to the other wiki's server, you can run the exportSites.php maintenance script and import the data using the importSites.php maintenance script of your MediaWiki installation.

If you don't have access to the other wiki's server but the other MediaWiki installation has the SiteMatrix extension installed, you can use a maintenance script from the Wikibase extension (populateSitesTable.php) to import all sites from the other wiki.

Adding a new site

If you want to add a new site into your MediaWiki's site table, you can use the maintenance script addSite.php .

Additionally, the above mentioned importSites.php maintenance script can be used to add an arbitrary group of wikis from custom made XML file in the following format:

<sites version="1.0" xmlns="https://www.mediawiki.org/xml/sitelist-1.0/">
	<site type="mediawiki">
		<globalid>wikisite1</globalid>
		<group>mywikigroup</group>
		<path type="file_path">https://www.wikisite1.org/$1</path>
		<path type="page_path">https://www.wikisite1.org/index.php/$1</path>
	</site>
	<site type="mediawiki">
		<globalid>wikisite2</globalid>
		<group>mywikigroup</group>
		<path type="file_path">https://www.wikisite2.org/w/$1</path>
		<path type="page_path">https://www.wikisite2.org/wiki/$1</path>
	</site>
</sites>

Each ‎<site> element representing a site.

file_path and page_path can be inferred from Special:Version page of the intended wiki.

Insert wiki family (using Script)

Sometimes, you have to add your wikis in this table. You can use this code:

$sites = [];
foreach ( [ 'en', 'fr' ] as $langCode ) {
     $site = new MediaWikiSite();
     $site->setGlobalId( $langCode . 'mywiki' );
     $site->setGroup( 'mywiki' );
     $site->setLanguageCode( $langCode );
     $site->addInterwikiId( $langCode );
     $site->addNavigationId( $langCode );
     $site->setPath( MediaWikiSite::PATH_PAGE, "http://$langCode.mywiki.org/wiki/$1" );
     $site->setPath( MediaWikiSite::PATH_FILE, "http://$langCode.mywiki.org/w/$1" );           
     $sites[] = $site;
}

$siteStore = MediaWikiServices::getInstance()->getSiteStore();
$siteStore->clear(); // This will remove all previous entries from the table. Remove this call if you want to keep them.
$siteStore->saveSites( $sites );


Reloading the cached sites table

MediaWiki caches the sites table in the local-server cache (CACHE_ACCEL) if it is available (ACPu or WinCache installed). After making changes to the sites table using any of the above methods, you should reload or restart any long-running MediaWiki PHP processes: your web server, continuous job runners (if any), etc. Otherwise, changes to the sites table will only become effective after the cache expires.

Schema summary

1.35
Gerrit change 597664
MediaWiki version:
1.35
Gerrit change 622214

DESCRIBE sites;

+-----------------+------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field           | Type             | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
+-----------------+------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| site_id         | int(10) unsigned | NO   | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
| site_global_key | varbinary(64)    | NO   | UNI | NULL    |                |
| site_type       | varbinary(32)    | NO   | MUL | NULL    |                |
| site_group      | varbinary(32)    | NO   | MUL | NULL    |                |
| site_source     | varbinary(32)    | NO   | MUL | NULL    |                |
| site_language   | varbinary(35)    | NO   | MUL | NULL    |                |
| site_protocol   | varbinary(32)    | NO   | MUL | NULL    |                |
| site_domain     | varbinary(255)   | NO   | MUL | NULL    |                |
| site_data       | blob             | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
| site_forward    | tinyint(1)       | NO   | MUL | NULL    |                |
| site_config     | blob             | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
+-----------------+------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
MediaWiki versions:
1.21 – 1.34

DESCRIBE sites;

+-----------------+------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field           | Type             | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
+-----------------+------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| site_id         | int(10) unsigned | NO   | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
| site_global_key | varbinary(32)    | NO   | UNI | NULL    |                |
| site_type       | varbinary(32)    | NO   | MUL | NULL    |                |
| site_group      | varbinary(32)    | NO   | MUL | NULL    |                |
| site_source     | varbinary(32)    | NO   | MUL | NULL    |                |
| site_language   | varbinary(32)    | NO   | MUL | NULL    |                |
| site_protocol   | varbinary(32)    | NO   | MUL | NULL    |                |
| site_domain     | varbinary(255)   | NO   | MUL | NULL    |                |
| site_data       | blob             | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
| site_forward    | tinyint(1)       | NO   | MUL | NULL    |                |
| site_config     | blob             | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
+-----------------+------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+

Indexes

MediaWiki version:
1.42

SHOW INDEX IN sites;

+-------+------------+-----------------+--------------+-----------------+-----------+-------------+----------+--------+------+------------+---------+---------------+
| Table | Non_unique | Key_name        | Seq_in_index | Column_name     | Collation | Cardinality | Sub_part | Packed | Null | Index_type | Comment | Index_comment |
+-------+------------+-----------------+--------------+-----------------+-----------+-------------+----------+--------+------+------------+---------+---------------+
| sites |          0 | PRIMARY         |            1 | site_id         | A         |           0 |     NULL | NULL   |      | BTREE      |         |               |
| sites |          0 | site_global_key |            1 | site_global_key | A         |           0 |     NULL | NULL   |      | BTREE      |         |               |
+-------+------------+-----------------+--------------+-----------------+-----------+-------------+----------+--------+------+------------+---------+---------------+