Wikispooks:Site Backup
Even if you are a casual reader and not a contributor to the wikispooks project, you are encouraged to download and keep a backup copy of the site (~2.9Gb) in case it goes offline for any reason. The site is open licenced so you are free to publish the content elsewhere, either as an exact mirror or as part of another website. The more people around the world who keep a backup, the better.
Contents
Content of the 'Backups' directory
- Available files are listed in the Backup files list box on the right. The main site backup files are in the form
site-YYYY-MM-DD.zipindicating the date taken and there will usually be at least 4 generations of them. The filesite-latest.ziplinks to the most up-to-date of the site backups. wikileaks.zipcontains Bit-Torrent files for the entire wikileaks site between its launch in 2006 and February 2010.- From time-to-time there may be other Wikispooks project-related files made available for download.
Notes
The following items are not included in the main site backup files:
- The 'Anon Uploads Form'
- 'Piwik stats'
- Wikileaks 'Torrents' - Separate download
here
Setting up and running a Copy Of The Site
 System requirements
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A single main site backup file contains everything needed to run a copy or mirror of the Wikispooks site on a suitably configured web server. Separate installation of Mediawiki and its extensions is NOT required.
The web server used by Wikispooks is Apache running on Centos 7 Linux. Both are assumed in these instructions although NginX, IIS and other web servers, as well as other Linux distributions and operating systems can be configured to run Mediawiki and the Wikispooks site.
N.B. WampServer or Xampp provide all the Apache web-server software required (except for Xcache) to run the Wikispooks site locally on either a Linux or Windows machine.. If you do not install either Xcache or APC separately, then you must change $wgMainCacheType = CACHE_ACCEL; to $wgMainCacheType = CACHE_DB; in /w/LocalSettings.php.
Overview
Set up your web server; create a blank MySQL database; download site-latest.zip to your server root and unpack it; import file path-to-server-root/backups/ws.sql into your blank MySQL database; edit path-to-server-root/w/LocalSettings.php and enter your database name and user credentials; navigate to your web-server root from your web browser to browse your local copy of Wikispooks.
Web server directives
- Pretty urls are required for full site functionality. Add the following to the bottom of your server or virtual server config file:
Alias /wiki path-to-server-root/w/index.php.- Apache config files are usually located at
/etc/httpd/.
- for correct display of the Site backups list box. Add the following to your server config file:
<Directory "path-to-server-root/backups">
Options +Indexes
IndexIgnore .. header.html
HeaderName header.html
IndexOptions FancyIndexing SuppressDescription SuppressLastModified
</Directory>
- Linux only: you may have to tweek a few directory permission for the site to run smoothly. In particular the following require user (Usually
Apache) write permissions:
path-to-server-root/w/cache/path-to-server-root/w/images/
The MySQL database
The database must be created manually (see MySQL manual).
Database name wikispooks and user WSuser are assumed in the downloaded LocalSettings.php.
You can use different names but these must be entered into LocalSettings.php - see below.
The backup file
Place your downloaded latest-site.zip file in the server root directory and and unzip it. This will create a directory structure containing all application and associated site files. It will also place the database content file ws.sql in the path-to-server-root/backups/ directory.
Import the Wikispooks content into your database
Import path-to-server-root/backups/ws.sql into the new database.
N.B. The file is too large for a default configuration of phpMyAdmin to handle. Try a MySQL command for this, e.g.
$ mysql -u username -p password -h localhost data-base-name < ws.sql
LocalSettings.php
The file is located at path-to-server-root/w/LocalSettings.php.
Database credentials
Locate the following code block:
## Database settings
include("../../cgi-bin/WsDbInfo.php");
#$wgDBtype = "mysql";
#$wgDBserver = "localhost";
#$wgDBname = "wikispooks";
#$wgDBuser = "";
#$wgDBpassword = "";
#$wgDBadminuser = "";
#$wgDBadminpassword = "";
Delete the line beginning: include. Delete all # characters and enter your new database credentials in the corresponding lines.
Host name and miscellaneous settings
Search and replace/edit where your-host can be either the host name or IP address of your web server:
- search for:
$wgServer = "https://wikispooks.com";.
- Replace with:
$wgServer = "http://your-host";
- search for:
$wgAllowExternalImagesFrom = array ('https://wikispooks.com/','https://www.wikispooks.com/','https://127.0.0.1/','https://perry.wikispooks.com');.
- Replace with:
$wgAllowExternalImagesFrom = array('http://your-host','http://127.0.0.1');
- search for:
enableSemantics('wikispooks.com');
- Replace with:
enableSemantics('your-host');
- search for:
require_once ('extensions/piwik/Piwik.php');.
- Put a
#character at the beginning of this and the following 2 lines to disable the Piwik stats extension.
Error reporting
If things don't go smoothly, adding the following lines to LocalSettings.php will give you some diagnostic output:
$wgShowExceptionDetails = true;$wgShowSQLErrors = 1;
It's recommended to take these lines out once things are working OK.
Running A Live Site Mirror
If you have interest and resources to set up a realtime site mirror on your server, you are encouraged to do so. We may also be able to provide you with some technical assistance if needed. Requests for help setting up realtime mirrors should be addressed to admin[at]wikispooks.org and encrypted with this key.
Known Issues
- xdebug is a php debugging tool which produces output similar (but considerably more verbose) to
$wgShowExceptionDetailsabove. It is installed and enabled by default in both Wamp server and Xampp. Wikispooks admins have found it useful in tracking down common installation problems but that a default setting results in ungraceful out of memory failures on some of the more common installation issues, rendering it useless in tracking them down. Either disable it by commenting out the [xdebug] block in php.ini or increasemax_nesting_levelfrom the default 100 with the following if you wish to use it:xdebug.max_nesting_level=300
- Many internal wikilinks are of the form [[Wikispooks:...]], so will not work unless your project is identically named. This can be tackled with a global search and replace (to "[[Project:...]]"). This issue is being gradually addressed, for easier portability.
- Suggestions, Queries etc? - Either Email the admin (non-WikiSpooks members) or use this discussion page (WikiSpooks members)
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