MediaWiki reinstallation notes – attempt 02

2008-08-30

MediaWiki reinstallation notes >

Checking out Bundled server software — it works!

Using (distribution not recorded)

Table of Contents [hide]

Cleanup ∞

I had to do some cleanup first:

pcc > system > services

  • stop httpd and mysql

  • uninstall everything related to Apache and MySQL

XAMPP/Lite ∞

(XAMPP Lite)

Doesn’t exist for Linux.

Old backup notes ∞

2008-09-07:

I had some issues and did some research on this.

First, figure out the charset of the live website’s database. You can see which character set your tables are using with a MySQL statement like:

mysql -u username -p username_mediawiki
SHOW CREATE TABLE text;

Try dumping like this.

USER=username
PASSWORD=password
CHARSET=utf8
DATABASE=username_mediawiki
nice -n 19 mysqldump -u $USER -p$PASSWORD --default-character-set=$CHARSET $DATABASE -c | nice -n 19 gzip -9 > database.sql.gz

XAMPP ∞

(XAMPP)

stuff ∞

su
tar xvfz /home/user/Desktop/xampp-linux-1.6.7.tar.gz -C /opt
/opt/lampp/lampp start
Spoiler 
Starting XAMPP for Linux 1.6.7...
XAMPP: Starting Apache with SSL (and PHP5)...
XAMPP: Starting MySQL...
XAMPP: Starting ProFTPD...
XAMPP for Linux started.

Then run:

/opt/lampp/lampp security

And do this:

XAMPP: Quick security check...
XAMPP: Your XAMPP pages are NOT secured by a password.
XAMPP: Do you want to set a password? [yes] no
XAMPP: MySQL is accessable via network.
XAMPP: Normaly that's not recommended. Do you want me to turn it off? [yes] yes
XAMPP: Turned off.
XAMPP: Stopping MySQL...
XAMPP: Starting MySQL...
XAMPP: The MySQL/phpMyAdmin user pma has no password set!!!
XAMPP: Do you want to set a password? [yes] no
XAMPP: MySQL has no root passwort set!!!
XAMPP: Do you want to set a password? [yes] no
XAMPP: The FTP password is still set to 'lampp'.
XAMPP: Do you want to change the password? [yes] no
XAMPP: Done.

Ok, done.

/opt/lampp/lampp stopftp

Is everything healthy?

/opt/lampp/lampp status
Spoiler 
Version: XAMPP for Linux 1.6.7
Apache is running.
MySQL is running.
ProFTPD is deactivated.

  • Then surf to http://localhost

    • NOTE: You may have to refresh (control-r) if it shows you the “It works!” default message from the PCLinuxOS Apache install. If it persists, then you didn’t stop and uninstall Apache correctly.

  • surf to http://localhost/xampp/lang.php?en

    • .. everything looks healthy
  • http://localhost/phpmyadmin/
  • On that same page, in the middle, for “Create new database” and type in username_mediawiki
  • At the top tab, click ‘import’
  • Browse for the SQL file

  • Character set of the file: latin1

It says:

Error
You probably tried to upload too large file. Please refer to documentation for ways to workaround this limit.

Sigh.

Ok, at the commandline

/opt/lampp/bin/mysql
source /mnt/cdrom/filename.sql

It explodes with a whole lot of:

ERROR 1046 (3D000): No database selected

So I do a control-c

/opt/lampp/bin/mysql
USE username_mediawiki
source /mnt/cdrom/filename.sql

It seems to be trying very hard now. I got some errors that flew by, about some tables which did not exist. I don’t understand how that’s possible since I did a regular everyday dump of this database.

note to self: I probably could have skipped using PhpMyAdmin entirely and used a commandline for MySQL:

DROP database username_mediawiki;
CREATE database username_mediawiki;

Making a user:

CREATE USER username IDENTIFIED BY 'password';

FYI, to change that password later, do this:

SET PASSWORD FOR 'username'@'%' = PASSWORD('password');

ok, now control-d to get out of MySQL.

Restore the httpdocs from your old server, to the root of /opt/lampp/htdocs/

Make sure that you also get any hidden files. The most common one will be your .httpdocs

If you vist localhost and you get:

Sorry! This site is experiencing technical difficulties.

Try waiting a few minutes and reloading.
(Can't contact the database server: Access denied for user 'username'@'localhost' (using password: YES) (localhost))
/opt/lampp/bin/mysql
SET PASSWORD FOR 'username'@'%' = PASSWORD('password');

This failed for me. Hmm. I checked LocalSettings.php and everything seemed healthy. Maybe it’s a permissions issue?

chown nobody /opt/lampp/htdocs/ -R

Nope..

It’s because XAMPP is stupidly redirecting http://localhost/ to http://localhost/xampp/

I deleted /opt/lampp/htdocs/index.html and I refreshed the page. Now I stay at http://localhost/ and still get the same “can’t connect” error. So the issue must be with the user or database.

So let’s see if you can get in with:

/opt/lampp/bin/mysql --user username

Nope.

/opt/lampp/bin/mysql --user root

Pressed enter for the password. It lets me in.

SET PASSWORD FOR 'username'@'%' = PASSWORD('password');
# press control-d to exit
/opt/lampp/bin/mysql --user username

Nope.

/opt/lampp/bin/mysql --user username

And pressing enter for the password. It lets me in. What the hell.

Ok, I’ll update htdocs/LocalSettings.php and htdocs/AdminSettings.php and blank out the password. It doesn’t work, now I get:

(Can't contact the database server: Access denied for user ''@'localhost' to database 'username_mediawiki' (localhost))

Ok, I switch things back. Now for something different. It looks like the user “username” doesn’t have permission to access the database “username_mediawiki”

/opt/lampp/bin/mysql --user username -p username_mediawiki

Gives me:

ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user 'username'@'localhost' (using password: YES)
/opt/lampp/bin/mysql --user root -p username_mediawiki
GRANT ALL ON username_mediawiki.* TO 'username'@'localhost' identified by 'password';

Ok, now try:

/opt/lampp/bin/mysql --user username -p username_mediawiki

Wooh! Now try http://localhost but I get a new error!

A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was:

   (SQL query hidden)

from within function "Job::pop". MySQL returned error "1146: Table 'username_mediawiki.job' doesn't exist (localhost)".

Ok, so let’s drop and re-import this database.

/opt/lampp/bin/mysql --user root -p username_mediawiki
DROP database username_mediawiki;
CREATE database username_mediawiki;
GRANT ALL ON username_mediawiki.* TO 'username'@'localhost' identified by 'password';

The exit, and let’s use MySQL to import things properly again.

/opt/lampp/bin/mysql -u username -p username_mediawiki < database.sql

I get an error, similar to the PhpMyAdmin error!

ERROR 1071 (42000) at line 178: Specified key was too long; max key length is 1000 bytes

So at this point I must conclude that my initial mysqldump command to make this .sql was bad!

I don’t see any way to dump things differently. Let’s try this.

/opt/lampp/bin/mysql --user root -p username_mediawiki
DROP database username_mediawiki;
CREATE database username_mediawiki;
GRANT ALL ON username_mediawiki.* TO 'username'@'localhost' identified by 'password';
USE username_mediawiki;
##### ALTER DATABASE DEFAULT CHARACTER SET latin1 COLLATE latin1_bin;
source /opt/lampp/htdocs/database.sql

A lot of crap whizzes by. Ok, doing some checking it looks like update.php might need to be run..

/opt/lampp/bin/php /opt/lampp/htdocs/maintenance/update.php

Success! Now all I’d need to do is thin out these instructions into a working set.

notes:
  • The MySQL administrator (root) has no password.
  • ProFTPD uses the password “lampp” for user “nobody”.

Footnotes

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