Rolling over to new MediaWiki

[Dave Neary]

Hi Karsten,

On 09/28/2012 09:07 PM, Karsten 'quaid' Wade wrote:
> It occurred to me that we could skip the upgrade to 1.19.2 for the
> current site. Can't we just migrate the data directly? There must be a
> process or tool for updating the database before moving to 1.19.2, so we
> i) copy the 1.16 data, ii) convert it to 1.19 data, iii) pull that in to
> the new site.
>
> Otherwise, I don't see the value in going through whatever will come up
> in the update of the current instance.

It's even easier than that - you point a MediaWiki 1.19.2 install at a 
1.16 database, and MediaWiki upgrades the database for you the first 
time you load it. There are also other resources that need to move, 
images & file uploads, themes and so on. But the database upgrade is 
trivial.

> I'm still in favor of using OpenShift. It reduces the number of services
> (and servers) that Infra manages. MediaWiki is a commodity service, so
> perfect for a PaaS; cf. Jenkins and Gerritt that are key to the
> development, so making those core services we manage makes more sense.
> Similarly, I'd like to move Mailman over to OpenShift; I think we're
> still waiting for some SMTP features.

OK - so we should clarify what we're looking for with AlterWay - two 
servers, one for Gerrit and one for Jenkins, and that's it? Where will 
our git repositories live?

>> We definitely need to get to "feature parity" with the old site ASAP,
>> and I think we need to integrate some newer content too pre-launch.
>
> Yeah, I'd like to understand further why parity is necessary.

Parity in the sense of fulfilling the same function as the former 
WordPress pages - providing news, download information, links to 
documentation and community resources - the "features" that are 
currently done in WordPress.

The reason I use feature partity is because Garrett's made it clear that 
the move to MediaWiki is primarily to replace what the site does now - 
after that we will need to add extensions for things like embedding 
videos and screenshots, providing RSS feeds for news and events, 
including a calendar on the website, all the other cool stuff we want to 
add (like the extensions download page, better integration with Bugzilla 
via the REST API, etc).


>> The new hosting, I think, can come afterwards. Are we ready to move to
>> OpenShift right now?
>
> I think we have 1.19 on OpenShift, so no, there are steps to get there.

I meant in terms of having the service available. Is there anything we 
need to do besides updating DNS and moving the database & files to the 
new server?

>> Anyway, I favour doing it step by step if we can.
>
> Sure, I think that makes sense. All-at-once rollover is more of a MO
> around if we upgrade the standing wiki or not. I think we'll want to
> take things in steps and stages, for sure.

I have no opposition to upgrading the standing wiki to 1.19 as a 
preparatory step - with the usual precautions (database back-up, don't 
over-write the old MW install before checking the new one works, etc). 
But if you need a package, then that is not practical. That is up to the 
infra team to decide.

Cheers,
Dave.

-- 
Dave Neary
Community Action and Impact
Open Source and Standards, Red Hat
Ph: +33 9 50 71 55 62 / Cell: +33 6 77 01 92 13