Mediawiki-docker

Directories

• Backup directory ~/backups
• Mediawiki directory ~/mediawiki-docker

Accounts

• DB account (defined in compose.yml and LocalSettings.php):
  • database: wikidb ($wgDBname)
  • user: ($wgDBuser)
  • password: ($wgDBpassword)
• Mediawiki admin:
• Mediawiki user:

Note the mediawiki admin and user accounts are embedded in the SQL database.

Backup

Assume the mediawiki directory on the host is /var/www/html/wiki

• MySQL

  mkdir ~/backups
  cd ~/backups
  sudo mysqldump -p wikidb > sql_backup_file

• images (no need for extensions/skins directories)

  cp /var/www/html/wiki/LocalSettings.php ~/backups/LocalSettings.php
  cd /var/www/html/wiki
  tar -czf ~/backups/images.tar.gz images

Prepare host project folder for Docker

mkdir ~/mediawiki-docker/
cd ~/mediawiki-docker
tar -xzvf ~/backups/images.tar.gz

compose.yml

Tips: Do not mount host's extensions and skins folders.

services:
  db:
    image: mariadb:10.11
    container_name: mw_db
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: ""
      MYSQL_DATABASE: "wikidb"
      MYSQL_USER: ""
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: ""
    volumes:
      - ./db_data:/var/lib/mysql
    #healthcheck:
    #  test: ["CMD", "mysqladmin", "ping", "-h", "localhost"]
    #  interval: 10s
    #  timeout: 5s
    #  retries: 5

  mediawiki:
    image: mediawiki:1.43.3
    container_name: mw_web
    depends_on:
      - db
    #    condition: service_healthy
    ports:
      - "82:80"
    volumes:
      - ./images:/var/www/html/images
      - ./extensions/Highlightjs_Integration:/var/www/html/extensions/Highlightjs_Integration:ro
      - ./extensions/SimpleMathJax:/var/www/html/extensions/SimpleMathJax:ro
      - ./LocalSettings.php:/var/www/html/LocalSettings.php:ro
      - ./php.ini:/usr/local/etc/php/conf.d/mediawiki.ini:ro
    restart: unless-stopped

Prepare LocalSettings.php for Docker

• Open your backed-up LocalSettings.php and change DB host/user/password to match docker-compose.yml:
• $wgServer has to be the exact URL you will access. For example, http://wiki.taichimd.us:82/ instead of http://localhost:82 even if I access the site from home
• Ensure the file contains the necessary wfLoadExtension() lines for the extensions you want enabled

  $wgDBserver = ""; 
  $wgDBname   = "";
  $wgDBuser   = "";
  $wgDBpassword = "ChangeThisWikiPass";
  
  // set server and script path appropriately:
  $wgServer = "http://your.host.or.ip:82"; 
  $wgScriptPath = ""; // usually empty when site is at webroot
  

Put the extensions in place

MultimediaViewer and WikiEditor are bundled in the mediawiki. We just need to load them in the LocalSettings.php file.

cd ~/mediawiki-docker/extensions
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/jmnote/SimpleMathJax.git SimpleMathJax

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Nicolas01/Highlightjs_Integration.git

Ensure LocalSettings.php load these extensions.

wfLoadExtension( 'SimpleMathJax' );
wfLoadExtension( 'Highlightjs_Integration' );
wfLoadExtension( 'MultimediaViewer' );
wfLoadExtension( 'WikiEditor' );

Start containers and import DB

Replace $MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD with the actual root password you used in your MariaDB container:

cd ~/mediawiki-docker
docker compose up -d db

docker run --rm -v ~/backups:/backup --network container:mw_db mariadb:10.11 \
  sh -c 'exec mysql -h 127.0.0.1 -u root -p"ChangeThisRootPass" wikidb < /backup/sql_backup_file'

docker compose up -d mediawiki

Run MediaWiki updater (DB schema) inside the container

This may takes a longer time to run the first time.

docker compose exec mediawiki php /var/www/html/maintenance/update.php

Fix permissions

usually www-data UID 33.

id www-data
# uid=33(www-data) gid=33(www-data) groups=33(www-data)

sudo chown -R 33:33 ~/mediawiki-docker/images ~/mediawiki-docker/extensions

Verify & test

• Open http://http://your.host.or.ip:82/Special:Version — check MediaWiki version and enabled extensions.

• Upload a small image to File: to verify images/ mount works.

• Check Math rendering on a page with <math>...</math> (SimpleMathJax) and confirm highlight.js highlighting in a <syntaxhighlight> block.

• Confirm MultimediaViewer opens images in the lightbox.

Bonus: Chinese characters

sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8

Backup MYSQL

docker exec -i mw_db mysqldump -u root -p"$MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD" wikidb > ~/backups/wikidb_$(date +%F).sql
# OR
docker compose exec db mysqldump -u root -p"$MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD" wikidb > ~/backups/wikidb_$(date +%F).sql

Steps for upgrading 1.43.3 → 1.43.4

• Edit your compose.yml by changing the image tag from 1.43.3 to 1.43.4
• Pull the new image. docker compose pull mediawiki
• Restart with new version. docker compose up -d mediawiki
• Run update.php. docker compose exec mediawiki php maintenance/run.php update
• Verify and check the log. docker compose logs -f mediawiki