MediaWiki Tips and Tricks

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A collection of 121 articles

How to Set Up a Backup and Restore Strategy for MediaWiki Sites

Why a Backup Strategy Matters MediaWiki stores its critical data in two places: the relational database (pages, revisions, users, logs, etc.) and the file system (configuration, extensions, skins, uploaded images). A single‑point failure – a corrupted database, a lost LocalSettings.php, or a missing images/ directory – can render a wiki

Enhancing Search in MediaWiki Using the CirrusSearch Extension

Why CirrusSearch matters for a MediaWiki site If you’ve ever typed a phrase into Special:Search and gotten a wall of unrelated hits, you know the frustration. The classic MediaWiki search is fast enough for a handful of pages, but it falls flat once your wiki grows beyond a

Top 10 MUST HAVE MediaWiki Extensions for Every MediaWiki

A curated list of ten extensions I believe are indispensable. I explain what problem each solves, when to use it, and any trade-offs to watch out for

Mastering MediaWiki Template Development for Dynamic Content

Why “just another template” never cuts it Ever opened a wiki page and felt the layout was as stale as last year’s Christmas sweater? You’re not alone. Most wikis start with a handful of hand‑crafted tables and a sprinkling of {{Infobox}} calls, then they stall. The real

Configuring OAuth Authentication in MediaWiki for Secure Logins

Why OAuth matters for MediaWiki logins When you run a wiki that anyone can join, the old‑school username/password combo starts to feel a bit… rusty. A compromised password can open the whole site to vandalism, and keeping track of password policies across dozens of installs is a headache.

How to Use Page Forms Extension to Create Custom Data Entry Forms in MediaWiki

Why Page Forms? The Page Forms extension (formerly Semantic Forms) lets you turn any infobox‑style template into a user‑friendly form. It works on its own, or together with Semantic MediaWiki or Cargo for data storage and querying. With Page Forms you can let editors add, edit and query

Using Lua Modules in MediaWiki with the Scribunto Extension

Using Lua Modules in MediaWiki with the Scribunto Extension Ever stared at a wikitext page that just wouldn’t behave the way you wanted, and thought “there must be a better way”? You’re not alone. In the wild world of MediaWiki the answer often lives in the Module namespace,

How to set up a local MediaWiki instance using Docker Compose

How to set up a local MediaWiki instance using Docker Compose Running a MediaWiki wiki on your own laptop is a great way to experiment with extensions, skins, or just learn the platform. The official MediaWiki‑Docker development environment provides a ready‑made docker‑compose stack that works on Windows,

Speeding Up MediaWiki with Redis: Installation, Configuration, and Best Practices

Why add Redis to MediaWiki? MediaWiki performs many expensive operations – parsing wikitext, running extensions, and handling job queues. A fast, in‑memory key‑value store reduces database load and cuts page‑render time. Redis offers low latency, built‑in persistence options, and can serve as object cache, session store, and

How to Secure MediaWiki with SSL and HSTS

Why HTTPS matters for MediaWiki MediaWiki stores user passwords, edit tokens and personal data in clear‑text when it is accessed via HTTP. An attacker on the same network can intercept those values, hijack sessions and even rewrite page content. Enforcing HTTPS encrypts the traffic between the browser and the