Wikibase/Docker

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The Wikibase team is now regularly releasing Docker images with MediaWiki, Wikibase and associated services. With a little customization, you can install exactly the kind of Wikibase instance you need.

The MediaWiki extensions included in this install are listed in this section of the manual install instructions.

Review issues and the project roadmap on the Phabricator workboard.

Before you startEdit

You’ll need to have docker and docker-compose installed on the computer where you want to run your Wikibase instance. (For help with this step, consult the resources list at the bottom of the page.)
The Wikibase team recommends providing at least 8GiB of RAM for a complete Docker install including all services.
- You can get quick insight into your Docker resource usage with the docker stats command; also check out Docker’s documentation on resource constraints.

Preparing your environmentEdit

Examine the files in the example directory of the wikibase-release-pipeline repository. As you'll see below, you'll be creating your own copies of several of these files and using them to launch your version of our Docker images.

You'll need a docker-compose.yml file much like the one provided in the example directory, and an optional docker-compose.extra.yml (see below for context). You'll also need your own .env file.

Create a new directory. Copy the docker-compose.yml file into that directory, and copy the template.env in the example directory into your new directory as a file named .env. In the .env file, replace the passwords and secrets with your own.

Bear in mind that the name of the directory into which you place these files appears in the Docker container names.

MediaWiki ConfigurationEdit

MW_ADMIN_NAME
MW_ADMIN_PASS
MW_ADMIN_EMAIL

These values will be deployed into your MediaWiki installation. You'll use this username and password to log into the web interface of your new instance for the first time; the email address you enter here also serves as your password recovery channel.

MW_SECRET_KEY

This secret key should be unique; MediaWiki uses it for several purposes (e.g., session management, fallback cryptographic entropy source). See the link for more information.

Database ConfigurationEdit

DB_NAME
DB_USER
DB_PASS

The database name, user and password you specify here will be deployed into your installation.

Wikibase ConfigurationEdit

WIKIBASE_PINGBACK=false

By default, the Wikibase pingback feature is disabled. Please consider enabling this feature (which sends only anonymized data) by changing false to true.

Enabling this feature significantly improves Wikimedia Deutschland's insight into how Wikibase is being used and helps us make more informed decisions regarding the development roadmap. For more information, read our pingback documentation topic.

HostnamesEdit

WIKIBASE_HOST=wikibase.svc
WIKIBASE_PORT=80

WDQS_FRONTEND_HOST=wdqs-frontend.svc
WDQS_FRONTEND_PORT=8834

QUICKSTATEMENTS_HOST=quickstatements.svc
QUICKSTATEMENTS_PORT=8840

MW_ELASTIC_HOST=elasticsearch.svc
MW_ELASTIC_PORT=9200

These define the host name and port of your Wikibase (what you would put in your browser’s address bar) and any external services you chose to install.

If you're using any of the above external services outside of a self-contained Docker setup, you need to set WIKIBASE_HOST, WDQS_FRONTEND_HOST, QUICKSTATEMENTS_HOST and/or MW_ELASTIC_HOST to publicly-accessible hostnames -- that is, hostnames that can be resolved in DNS -- or IP addresses (which might be the right choice if you're running this on a local network). Don't use localhost in any setup that requires separate services to talk to one another.

Minimal installEdit

At this stage, you have what you need to install MediaWiki (running on port 80) with Wikibase and a MySQL (MariaDB) backing database.

In the folder where you placed docker-compose.yml as mentioned above, simply run:

docker-compose up -d

Extended installEdit

You may also wish to run additional services like the query service (WDQS), QuickStatements (see here for more information) and Elasticsearch.

To run these additional services we need to bring the containers up and specify both configurations by running:

docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.extra.yml up -d

NotesEdit

Both install processes end up launching two Docker containers:

{folder-name}_wikibase_1
{folder-name}_mysql_1.

The example invocations of docker-compose use the -d flag to start the containers in the background. You can omit this flag to run in the foreground, or, if you simply wish to view the continuous output, you can subsequently run docker-compose logs -f.

Job runnerEdit

The example docker-compose.yml sets up a dedicated job runner which restarts itself after every job, to ensure that changes to the configuration are picked up as quickly as possible.

If you run large batches of edits, this job runner may not be able to keep up with edits. You can speed it up by increasing the MAX_JOBS variable in your .env file, to run more jobs between restarts, if you’re okay with configuration changes not taking effect in the job runner immediately.

Alternatively, you can run several job runners in parallel by adding an option like --scale wikibase_jobrunner=8 to the docker-compose up command.

After installEdit

1. Verify that all the services have started: run docker-compose ps. You should see something like this:

       Name                    Command             State         Ports       
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
example_mysql_1      docker-entrypoint.sh mysqld   Up      3306/tcp          
example_wikibase_1   /bin/bash /entrypoint.sh      Up      0.0.0.0:80->80/tcp

2. Log into your local machine.

3. You may check the logs for success, further information or errors using this command: docker-compose logs --tail=20 -t

If you would like to create links between MediaWiki and Wikibase, make sure to run the add site script. Otherwise, you will see error messages like "The provided site identifier was not recognized".

For more detailed information, check out the README in the examples section of the wikibase-release-pipeline repository.

Using your new instanceEdit

Once all the services have started, you can begin the exciting process of filling up, extending and customizing your empty instance of Wikibase. Take a look at our setup resources page to get started.