Wikibase is a data repository for Mediawiki.

There are two main methods of installation

• As a Mediawiki extension
• As a Wikibase docker deployment

Visit the download page and fetch the correct version.

This guide details the steps required to install the extension which is also outlined below with Mediawiki 1.43.

Enter the mediawiki installation directory and extract the archive into the extensions directory

cd /var/www/htdocs/www.examle.com/w
tar zxvf ~/Wikibase-REL1_43-XXXXXXX.tar.gz -C extensions
chown -R www-data:www-data extensions/Wikibase

From the mediawiki directory run composer. Composer ought to have been installed earlier.

rm -f composer.lock
composer install --no-dev

Update the LocalSettings.php file to enable the extension.

wfLoadExtension('WikibaseRepository', "$IP/extensions/Wikibase/extension-repo.json");
require_once "$IP/extensions/Wikibase/repo/ExampleSettings.php";

Run the initial maintenance scripts to build the database tables to prepare the site.

php maintenance/run.php update
php maintenance/run.php ./extensions/Wikibase/lib/maintenance/populateSitesTable.php
php maintenance/run.php ./extensions/Wikibase/repo/maintenance/rebuildItemsPerSite.php
php maintenance/run.php populateInterwiki

Github

This setup requires a modern version of docker to be installed and was tested on Debian bookworm on a dual core VM with 12GB of RAM.

git clone https://github.com/wmde/wikibase-release-pipeline

cd wikibase-release-pipeline/deploy
cp template.env .env

vi .env

# Public hostname configuration.

WIKIBASE_PUBLIC_HOST=wikibase.example.com
WDQS_PUBLIC_HOST=query.example.com

# MediaWiki / Wikibase user configuration.

MW_ADMIN_NAME=username
MW_ADMIN_EMAIL=email@example.com
MW_ADMIN_PASS=changemetoatleast10chars

# MediaWiki / Wikibase database configuration.

DB_NAME=dbname
DB_USER=dbuser
DB_PASS=changemetoatleast10chars

Foreground

docker compose up

Update

docker compose up --pull always

Background

docker compose up --detach

Example

PREFIX wd: <https://wikibase.example.com/entity/>
SELECT * WHERE {
  wd:Q1 ?p ?o
}

BUG

After inserting data into an empty instance the query engine will need to be synchronised due to a bug, the following script has been provided.

#! /bin/sh

# Stop the stock updater
docker compose stop wdqs-updater

# Start an updater with force sync settings
docker compose run --rm wdqs-updater /wdqs/runUpdate.sh -h http://\$WDQS_HOST:\$WDQS_PORT -- --wikibaseUrl \$WIKIBASE_SCHEME://\$WIKIBASE_HOST --conceptUri \$WIKIBASE_CONCEPT_URI --entityNamespaces \$WDQS_ENTITY_NAMESPACES --init --start $(date +%Y%m%d000000)

# As soon as you see "Sleeping for 10 secs" in the logs, press CTRL-C to stop it again

# Start the stock updater again
docker compose start wdqs-updater

Special:Nuke

docker compose down --volumes
rm -vf config/{LocalSettings.php,wikibase-php.ini,wdqs-frontend-config.json}

Wikibase home page

Wikibase tutorial

Data import

WikibaseIntegrator

quickstatements